


Negotiations and Love Songs

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Asexual Character, Background Relationships, Because it's set at a Veterinary Clinic, Harm to Animals, M/M, Minor Violence, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, really slow build on the relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 16:25:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7515089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce and Phil have been together since college and now have a veterinary clinic together, and Natasha works for them. Natasha met Clint Barton years ago, fought with him, slept with him, and lost him, literally. Now he resurfaces and is clearly in need of help, from Natasha, Bruce and Phil in different ways. This is how they all figured out how they fit together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to lexorzz for beta help, and everyone on tumblr who have been so patient and encouraging. Seriously, I've been working on this for more than a year. Thanks for giving it a try!

The first time Clint Barton stumbled into Flint Animal Clinic, Bruce thought, “Oh shit. We’re going to have to call the cops again.” Bruce and Phil had to call the police at least once a month to drag someone out of the lobby – they were either looking for drugs or had parked themselves in the lobby to sleep. This was thanks to the way the neighborhood had grown around the small clinic Phil’s dad had opened forty years ago when the area was mostly residential.

Now it was a mish mash of liquor stores, small shops, and low-rent apartment buildings, with a few of the bungalow-style houses left standing in odd places. It wasn’t necessarily a rough neighborhood now, but no one really wanted to live there.

Bruce and Phil had bought a house about six blocks away from their clinic after they realized that rooming together in undergrad, renting together in graduate school, and interning together pre-practice was a good enough test of their compatibility, and they had passed it as well as anyone could. Actually, Bruce’s exact words to Phil had been, “I can’t seem to live properly when you’re not around,” and Phil had replied with, “That’s odd, because I can’t seem to feel alive when you’re not around.” The house was a bit of a trophy, really, nestled on the edge of the clinic’s shabby neighborhood and the classy, old-money village nearby.

Bruce and Phil had been together for seventeen years. That’s a long time. Phil loved designing new landscaping for the modest fenced-in backyard and postage-stamp sized front lawn, and Bruce puttered inside every weekend, updating the interior and working toward a more environmentally friendly place. He’d put a solar panel in the bathroom ceiling last summer. They spent Sunday mornings on their patio drinking coffee and tea and trading the sections of the newspaper. Sometimes Bruce thought their routines had routines. They took turns at the clinic on Saturdays, and both worked on Sunday afternoons when they opened it up for free appointments for the needy people and their pets in the area.

This wasn’t a Sunday, but the guy who tripped over the rug in the waiting area didn’t look much like a regular customer. His blond hair was tousled and looked like it could use a cut, his green army jacket was loose on his shoulders, and the grey t-shirt he had on underneath was stained darkly at the hem. His jeans were faded and threadbare, and his purple Chuck Taylors looked like they’d seen battle.

Bruce would admit later to cataloging a few stereotypes when he saw Clint the first time, and Clint would smile and shrug before he’d point out that Bruce’s first move had been toward the phone sitting at the end of the black counter top. His fears were unfounded, though, and when Clint stepped toward the counter and opened his jacket to reveal a quivering coal-black kitten with frightened green eyes, Bruce did a double take and looked at Clint a little more carefully.

“I think this guy needs some help,” Clint said in a gravelly voice as he looked down at the kitten cowering against his tattered t-shirt.

Bruce moved around the counter and reached for the kitten; Clint let it go carefully and Bruce felt him watching; he could feel protectiveness radiating from him. Bruce put the kitten on the counter and ran his fingers carefully over its body, pausing when he felt the small break in its right hind leg and getting a pathetic cry from the tiny fur ball.

“Doc?”

“Broken leg,” Bruce replied. He kept stroking the kitten’s ears to soothe it, and he called toward the swinging door behind him, “Hey, Natasha!” and then, “What’s his name?”

“Uh, well. It’s not my cat,” Clint replied, looking at the kitten forlornly, like he wished the cat was his.

“You found it?”

“Yeah. Well, there were these assholes down the block messing with him. I just wanted to help.”

Bruce looked closer and saw a bruise blooming Clint’s cheek and he blinked. “Did you get in a fight over this cat?”

Clint’s greenish eyes narrowed and he glanced away. “They were hurting him.”

Just then Natasha, Bruce and Phil’s only employee, a talented vet tech who had come to them a year ago, backed through the door wiping her hands on a towel. She looked at the kitten and then at Clint, and her eyes widened when she saw him.

“Can you gather the setting kit for this little guy?” Bruce asked, and she nodded and left without a word, which was weird. Bruce looked over at Clint, who had shoved his hands in his pockets and backed up toward the door. “Do you want to keep the kitten?” Bruce asked.

Clint took a deep breath and shook his head. “I can’t keep him. Just wanted to be sure he got some help. Sorry.”

Oftentimes when someone brought in a stray, they’d offer to help with the costs, but Clint was definitely headed out the door instead. This made Bruce sad for some inexplicable reason. “Well, thanks for bringing him in,” Bruce said.

Clint took one last glance at the kitten and just nodded before he turned and left.

Bruce didn’t see Clint for a while, hadn’t learned his name yet, only knew that the guy who brought in the black kitten had compassion etched into his battered face and a soft, textured voice that matched the way he gently held the little guy out to Bruce.

Bruce told Phil about it that night as they enjoyed the almost-fall weather out on their patio and Phil grilled some chicken while Bruce sipped a beer and rested his chin on Phil’s shoulder. “He was nice, you know? Didn’t look like he was in great shape himself, but he was nice. Saved that kitten’s life; there’s no way it would’ve lasted with that leg.”

Phil nodded and said, “Good Samaritan. I’d like to meet him.” 

Bruce didn’t know about Clint’s past, but he knew what he saw in his kind eyes and he recognized the way he walked, like he didn’t want to take up too much space. He was glad to see him again when Clint showed up a few weeks later with a tabby cat bundled in his arms. Just its striped face stuck out from the blanket wrapped around it, and it wasn’t squirming or upset.

“Hey, Doc,” Clint said.

“You have another cat,” Bruce said with a smile. He put down the pen he was using and leaned back from the counter. Clint was wearing the same clothes he’d had on before, but his eyes seemed brighter, and Bruce found himself staring. They were a kaleidoscope of color and seemed to shine.

“It’s not mine. It’s old Patty’s – do you know her?”

Bruce did. Patty was probably in her mid-seventies and she lived about two blocks over, toward Bruce and Phil’s house but still in the clinic neighborhood. She had lived there since Phil was a little kid, and she had been bringing Cedar, the striped cat in Clint’s arms, around since it was a kitten when they first took over the practice. “I do know her,” Bruce answered, and he came around to give Cedar’s head a scratch. “What’s going on?”

Clint grinned down at the cat. “Well, this crazy guy apparently decided to eat a mouse yesterday, and Patty said he’d thrown up twice since. Just wanted to get him checked. Her arthritis is really flaring right now, though, so she grabbed me by the shirt collar when I made the mistake of sitting on her front steps this morning, and said she’d give me a piece of her apple pie if I’d bring Cedar here for a check-up.”

Just then, Phil came through the door. He saw Cedar and grinned. “Patty called earlier to say he’d be in. She said she’d wrangle someone to do it. Did she promise you pie?”

Clint laughed, and Bruce watched in wonder as his face lit up and his eyes crinkled. He hadn’t seen him smile like that before, and it made Bruce’s mouth go dry. He swallowed the feeling he hadn’t had since he’d met Phil years ago as Clint replied, “Yeah. Man, have you guys had her pie? I’d bring a skunk in for her if she offered me her pie.”

Phil came over to pet Cedar, too, and he leaned against Bruce. They had been busy today, hadn’t had lunch together like they usually did, and Bruce had been busy yesterday with house calls. He wrapped his arm around Phil’s waist as he petted the cat, but Phil didn’t seem to mind. He did the same to Bruce and they leaned into each other as they talked to Clint. He didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m Phil Coulson, by the way,” Phil said after a moment.

“Oh,” Bruce said, “Sorry. Actually, I’m Bruce. I don’t know your name,” he said.

“Clint,” the guy said, and he made an aborted attempt to shake hands with an armful of cat and then just laughed.

“I’ll take Cedar,” Phil said. “Patty explained what happened and I think he probably just needs some fluids and observation.” He reached out to Clint and pulled the bundle into his arms.

“Hey, um,” Clint said as Phil left the lobby. “Is that black kitten still around?”

“Yes, and he’s doing fine. Would you like to see him?” Bruce asked.

“Sure, if you have time, I mean. I guess you’re kinda, you know, running a business?” he said with a crooked grin.

“I have another appointment in about half an hour, but I’ll go get him. We’ve temporarily named him Oliver.”

“I like it,” Clint said as Bruce headed back to the kennel to get the kitten. He brought it back to the lobby and a smile blossomed as he saw the little black kitten. Bruce set it down on the floor and Clint laughed as it limped around and mewed.

He knelt down and started talking softly. “Hey, kitty, lookin’ good,” he said, looking back at Bruce with a gleam in his eye that made him seem more energetic than the last time Bruce had seen him. He reached a finger out and said to Bruce, “He’s okay?”

Bruce didn’t answer right away, but reached down to pick up the kitten. He set the kitten in Clint’s hands with a smile. “He’s fine. He gets around pretty well and should be out of the cast in a week or two.”

Clint held the kitten close, looked around and found a chair, and sat down, all while stroking the kitten’s head and ears gently. He held the cat like it was Simba from the Lion King, and turned it around to get a better look. “You do look kinda stupid in that yellow cast, kitty,” he said, and then he pulled the cat close and nuzzled its neck. “God, you’re cute, though,” he said, more quietly.

Bruce watched silently as Clint cuddled and petted and talked to the kitten, explaining how glad he was that Bruce was able to fix the kitten up, what a lucky cat it was to be here, and other things that made Bruce warm down to his toes. Clint was a natural with the cat.

“Do you want some coffee?” Bruce asked.

“Uh,” Clint said, and looked up at Bruce like he’d forgotten someone else was around before ducking his head back down to the kitten, “Sure, I guess. Thanks.”

Bruce nodded and asked, “Do you take anything in it?”

“Oh. No, thanks. Black is good.”

Bruce headed back to the kitchen and fixed two cups. He headed back to the lobby and Clint still had the kitten on his lap and it was laying on its back letting Clint rub its belly. Bruce handed him a cup and the kitten pawed at the handle.

“No, kitty,” Clint admonished. “You’re spazzy enough, thanks.” He looked at Bruce and grinned. “He’s adorable.”

“Yeah. He’s recovering well. Now if we could only find him a home.”

Clint didn’t say anything, just nodded and sipped his coffee.

As Bruce watched, he tried to figure out how old Clint might be. He looked so tired, and his hand shook just a little as he held his cup, so Bruce figured he wasn’t getting the best look at him. He’d guess early thirties, though, with just enough lines around his eyes to keep him from being youthful, and clearly enough experience to keep him from being young. He seemed gentle, but then Bruce remembered the flash of anger and bruised face when he brought the kitten in.

Clint probably wasn’t someone to mess with. That was okay. Bruce liked Phil because he was gentle and kind but he could switch on tough and badass in a second when he was threatened. Clint seemed like he might be similar. Huh. Bruce let that settle in his brain a little as he watched Clint play with Oliver.

It was a few weeks later when Bruce and Phil were sitting up front together, shoulders touching and soft music playing from the computer speakers, working on the books during a slow moment, when the front door rattled. They looked up and stood at the same time when they saw Clint, this time carrying a small beagle wrapped in his green jacket; it wasn’t a puppy, but it wasn’t full-grown either. Its eyes were closed and its body was limp.

“I think it’s bad,” Clint said, and Bruce looked more closely and saw blood leaking from the dog’s mouth. “It got hit by a car. Fuckers didn’t even stop,” Clint added, his voice gravelly and fierce, his eyes cold with rage.

Phil glanced at Bruce and then back at Clint and said, “Follow me,” before heading back through the door that would take them to the surgery room. Bruce stopped to gather some supplies and grabbed his phone to call Natasha back from her lunch break early. They were going to need her.

Clint laid the dog on the surgery table and backed himself against the wall. Natasha was there in less than two minutes, took one look at Clint, Phil, and Bruce standing in the surgery room, and said, “Where do you want me?”

Bruce, conceding that Phil was the better trauma surgeon, ushered Clint back out to the waiting room and said, “You can stay if you want – “ but he cut himself off at the sight of Clint, whose face had gone white and who looked like he was going to throw up. He steered him to a chair and eased him down.

“Hey, Clint, hey,” he said, keeping his hands on Clint’s knees. “Are you going to be sick?”

Clint shook his head and took a deep, shaky breath. “No. No. I’m okay, sorry.”

“Want some water?”

“Yeah. Please.”

Bruce nodded and went behind the counter where they kept a mini fridge stocked with bottled water and juice. He grabbed one of each.

Clint had curled himself down to his knees and was muttering into his jeans. Bruce caught a few words, ‘stop,’ ‘not here,’ and ‘fuck them,’ before he knelt down and put his hand on Clint’s shoulder. Clint flinched violently back into the chair, rattling the plastic back against the waiting room wall. His eyes were wild and darted from Bruce to the front door.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Bruce said, pulling his hand back slowly. “You’re safe here,” he added. Whatever this was, Bruce worried that he was going to handle it wrong. Taking care of animals instead of people had been a very conscious choice on Bruce’s part, and aside from Phil, Natasha and a couple others, people generally just pissed him off. Yet here he was, out of his depth. “Clint,” he said. “You’re going to be okay.”

Clint stood suddenly, knocking Bruce off balance and onto the floor. “I’m –“ he looked down at Bruce, sprawled on the tile, and looked confused. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered, and then he moved and was out the front door before Bruce could find his feet.

Bruce scrambled to the doorway and watched Clint rush down the sidewalk, arms curled around his middle, head down and shaking back and forth. It looked from a distance that he was still talking to himself. Bruce felt like he didn’t know the guy well enough to go after him, but he had a sudden feeling that the dog and cat Clint had brought in weren’t the only ones who needed to be rescued.

He closed the door and picked the bottles of water and juice up off the floor, put them back in the fridge, and sat down at the counter in case other clients showed up. There were a few of Phil’s appointments he was going to have to take.

“I think he needs help,” Bruce said later, as he and Phil sat on the front step drinking water and taking a break from keeping an eye on the beagle in recovery.

“Who?” Phil asked.

“Clint. The guy who brought the dog in this afternoon. I think he’s in a rough spot.” Bruce explained what happened that afternoon and Phil nodded.

“It sounds like PTSD to me, too. My uncle had it bad after Vietnam. Never really got it to go away. He couldn’t hold a job down after the war. A couple guys from my unit still have it pretty bad.”

Bruce had never considered the military – he had a temper and what seemed like an inbred problem with authority figures, so it didn’t seem like a good fit – but Phil had done four years in between grad school and opening the practice. He’d told some horrific and amazing stories and still got together with one of his best friends from his Ranger days when Nick was in town. Bruce nodded. “Yeah. We should offer some help if he comes back. He seems like a good guy.”

“I’ll bet he’s military,” Phil said, and Bruce shrugged. They headed back in to check on the dog.

Two days later, Clint showed up again, but this time he was empty-handed. Bruce and Phil found him sitting on the cement front steps to the place as they walked blearily up to the clinic in the morning. The day was crisp, one of the first days of fall when the mornings were promising fall but the afternoons were still stuck in summer. Clint had his knees pulled up to his chest, and he unfolded himself and stood as Bruce and Phil approached. He was wearing the same clothes from before, and the dark circles under his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept much. He ran his hand nervously through his hair and looked at Bruce.

“Hey.”

“Morning, Clint. How’re you doing?”

Clint shrugged and looked warily over at Phil. “Okay, I guess. I, uh, was wondering if that beagle made it through surgery.”

Phil smiled in the gentle way that made him so much better at people than Bruce, and nodded. “He did. We found his caretaker and he went home last night. We’ll check in on him, but he should be okay with some rest, thanks to you.”

Clint’s shoulders relaxed visibly and he stepped down onto to the sidewalk, angling around Bruce and Phil and heading away. “Oh, great. That’s great. Thanks for letting me know.” He was walking backwards, but then he stopped and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Uh, sorry, by the way,” he said, looking at Bruce.

Bruce nodded. “It’s okay. It wasn’t anything.” He didn’t need Clint to explain anything, and he didn’t want to put any more stress on him. The guy looked like he might break if he were pushed too hard in any direction.

They stood quietly for a beat, and then Phil looked between the two of them and called out to Clint, “Hey. Have you had any coffee this morning?” and Bruce smiled.

Clint bit his lip and looked back and forth between Phil and Bruce. “No.”

“You want a cup? We always drink a cup before we start the day here,” Phil offered.

“I have tea, too,” Bruce added. “If you’d rather.”

Clint looked down the street like he might have somewhere to be, but then he nodded. “Sure. Thanks.”

They all went inside, and Bruce turned on the lights and the computer as Phil headed into the back to start the coffee and check on the small kennel.

“You want a tour?” Bruce asked, as Clint stood nervously looking at the shelves that stood against the wall of pet food and pet manuals.

Clint nodded and followed Bruce through the door. “It’s actually a big place,” Bruce said as he led Clint down a narrow hallway. “Phil’s dad bought this house fifty years ago when he and his wife first got married. Ten years later the family had grown too much, and he wanted to open his own vet practice, so he killed two birds with one stone and moved the family and opened the practice here.”

“And you guys took it over?” Clint asked as Bruce showed him what used to be a bedroom and was now one of their two examining rooms. Bruce loved its homey feel, with wood floors, photos of the community and of animals peppering the room and the hallway. There were two bedrooms that had been converted, and then the hallway opened to the right into what had clearly been a kitchen and was now a small break room/washing area. “Don’t go looking for snacks in the fridge, though,” Bruce said as Clint admired the room. “Animal supplies only.” The cupboards held food, medicine, and other supplies. The kitchen led to what used to be a living room, but was now their emergency room.

Bruce opened the door from the kitchen, and looked back at Clint. He was standing stock-still and as soon as Bruce gestured for him to follow, he crossed his arms tightly across his chest and shook his head hard. “No,” was all he said, and Bruce recalled his breakdown the other day and put two and two together. The long, metal table and the rolling carts and monitors must be. . . Christ. Bruce didn’t want to think about why a room like that would set a guy off, so he just nodded and closed the door.

“We can go out back the other way, okay?” he said, and pointed to a side door off the hallway.

“Okay,” Clint replied, and he slowly followed Bruce through the side door.

Bruce led him down a couple more cement steps into what should be the side yard of the house, but had been converted to another room, long and narrow. It was their kennel. The cages weren’t full; only one of them had animals – the cat that Clint had brought in, actually – but there were ten of them, and they were big. When Phil and Bruce had the kennel built they decided that having ten cages built for dogs of at least fifty pounds was the best way to go. That way the cats they had would have plenty of room, and even the big dogs would be comfortable.

Bruce thought Clint would like to visit Oliver, but as soon as he turned to show Clint the room, he realized his mistake.

Clint stood frozen on the second step, staring at the cages. His jaw had dropped a little and his breath was coming in short bursts. Bruce said his name and Clint tore his gaze from the cages and looked at Bruce with panic-stricken eyes. He clambered backward, up the steps, turned and raced back to the hallway and out into the waiting room. He almost knocked Phil, who had been looking for them with a tray of coffee cups, off his feet when he burst through the door.

As it was, the tray clattered to the ground and Clint stumbled, going to his knees and then pulling himself up and flinging the front door open. He threw himself out onto the landing and stumbled again on the front steps.

Bruce had caught up and he grabbed Clint’s elbow before he went down hard on the pavement, and eased him to the step. Clint pulled his knees up to his forehead and rocked back and forth, and Bruce looked up as Phil came out the door and stood watching, a crease of worry across his forehead.

Clint was pulling on his hair and muttering, ‘stop, stop, stop, stop,’ and ‘Barton, Sergeant. Barton, Sergeant.”

Bruce knelt down next to him and said, “Clint, hey. Clint,” but got no response.

“What the hell happened?”

Bruce spun on his heel and saw Natasha coming up the walk. She was frowning, and she dropped her backpack that she always carried onto the grass beside the step. She knelt down and put her hand on Clint’s shoulder as he continued to rock back and forth and mutter. She looked at Bruce expectantly.

“I was giving him a tour of the office and when he saw the kennel he . . .” Bruce trailed off, unsure of what to call what was going on here.

“Can you get some water and a wet washcloth, Phil?” she asked, and Phil nodded and disappeared back inside.

Natasha turned back to Clint and rubbed her hand up and down his arm. “Sergeant Barton.” she said in a stern voice. “Clint, you’re on American soil and you’re safe. You’re Sergeant Clint Barton and you were discharged honorably on September 12th, 2011. Clint, you’re safe.”

Clint stopped rocking and the white knuckled pulling stopped as well and Phil appeared with a wet cloth that Natasha took and placed gently on the back of Clint’s neck. He was still muttering his name and rank, but his breathing slowed down and finally he looked up at Natasha with a look of such confusion that Bruce wanted to go hit someone.

Clint unfurled and clenched his arms around his chest. “Clint Barton, Sergeant,” he said, holding Natasha’s gaze like it was a lifeline, “Clint Barton.” He pulled in a deep breath and Natasha nodded, reaching out with the cloth again and touching Clint’s hand. He pursed his lips and breathed through his nose and nodded.

“Back with us?” she said quietly.

He nodded. “Sorry,” he said.

No one answered, and Phil leaned over and handed him an open bottle of water. Clint looked up and tried to smile, but he mostly failed and just grabbed the bottle with a shaky hand and said “Thanks,” before tipping it up and gulping. When he’d drained half the bottle, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood, looking down the street. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I appreciate the help.”

Bruce stood, too. “Can you come in and sit down for a bit? Maybe get that coffee?”

Clint looked at Bruce and then behind him at Phil and the clinic. “Maybe later,” he said with a shrug, and started walking away. Natasha jogged up to him and they stood, him with his head down and nodding as she seemed to give him instructions. She pulled at his elbow to get him to look at her and then he nodded again and turned and left.

Natasha watched him go, and then walked back to Bruce and Phil. She scooped her backpack up and pointed to the clinic, clearly not wanting to have a conversation on the step. When they got inside, she threw her bag down behind the counter and leaned against the wall.

“I’ve known him for a while,” she said without preamble. “He’s a retired Staff Sergeant, Army, and was a sniper in Afghanistan.”

“So it is PTSD,” Bruce said. “It seems bad.”

She nodded. “It is. We tried to get him some help, but the VA isn’t in awesome shape right now to handle their caseload and he probably hadn’t gotten more than a few sessions with a professional when I knew him. I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“What did you tell him when he was leaving?” Phil asked, and Bruce could see his brain filing the new information and trying to puzzle it out. Bruce had joked that Phil should’ve been a psychiatrist sometimes, and Phil loved a problem to solve. If it was a problem where he could help a person? Even better.

Natasha cocked her head and stayed silent.

“If you hadn’t seen him in a while, what did you tell him?” Phil repeated.

When she just glared, Bruce stepped over to Phil and put a hand on his elbow. “Natasha. We might want to help, too.”

She sighed. “I told him to get his ass back to the VA and see if he could have better luck getting a therapy appointment this time. He clearly needs it. I told him I’d help if he wouldn’t disappear on me again.”

Phil nodded and they were all quiet, and Bruce went to get cleaning supplies for the spilled coffee. As he was mopping up the mess, Phil suddenly snapped his fingers.

“I know who can help,” he said, and when Bruce looked up he was grinning maniacally.

“Who?” Bruce asked.

“Sam. We’ll get Sam to fit him in this week and see if he can assess what he needs.”

“Sam Wilson?” Natasha asked. She had become enough of a permanent fixture to become a friend, she was actually dating Phil’s best friend, and she knew Sam from his occasional drop-ins at the clinic and a few nights out.

“He works with vets,” Bruce explained. “He’s not part of the VA system, but one of his specialties is his work with vets and trauma victims. He’d be perfect,” he added, nodding his approval. Sam was funny and easygoing, and he ate dinner with Bruce and Phil at least once every couple of weeks. He was a psychiatrist and had also done a tour in Iraq before he went to grad school. It was a good idea. He’d probably be willing to fit Clint in after hours, even.

Natasha sighed heavily. “Clint probably doesn’t have any money. He won’t be able to pay.”

Phil and Bruce just stared, waiting for more information.

“He wasn’t having any luck holding down a job last time I heard,” she said.

They didn’t see him for a few days, but Bruce found himself thinking about Clint whenever things slowed down. He had his own coping strategies for his own issues – he avoided alpha male types like the plague and stayed away from competitive situations when he could. Clint, though, had clearly been triggered by the cages and the surgery room, and that scared Bruce.

“You’re thinking about him again,” Phil said, slipping a cup of tea into Bruce’s hands and rubbing his shoulder.

Bruce sighed and nodded. “Cages set him off, Phil.”

Phil sat down next to him on the steps to the small patio off the back of their house and ran his hand up and down his back. “He might’ve been a POW.”

“Cages, though. Aren’t there rules?” Even as Bruce formed the words he could feel the naivety of his question, and Phil didn’t even answer, just raised an eyebrow and sipped his coffee. Bruce tried a different tact. “Well, it seems like his situation is severe. Why isn’t the VA involved?”

“Wait lists, funding, self-reporting issues, transportation – lots of reasons. You know, vets account for twelve percent of the homeless population.”

Bruce thought about the people he passed every time he made a house call, thought about the poverty that even those in homes with jobs were facing around here. He thought about his own experience trying to make it on his own after his own life went to hell for a while. Phil had been there for him, and he’d had a clear goal of becoming a veterinarian. He had support. It didn’t look like Clint had much support.

They watched the squirrels play chase in the tiny backyard for a few minutes.

“I spoke with Sam this afternoon,” Phil said, leaning back in his chair. “He thinks he could at least help figure out what Clint needs and get him pointed in the right direction, and he said he’d do it for pizza from Giordino’s and that beer, and I quote, ‘from that one abbey in Belgium.’”

Bruce laughed. “I’m not exactly sure how he drinks it with pizza, but okay.” Sam and Bruce were beer snobs. Phil had spent enough time in and around the military that he was fine with Budweiser. It was an artificial argument he and Bruce enjoyed on occasion.

“Maybe Natasha can find Clint for us.”

“Phil, how are we going to convince Clint to talk with Sam? We hardly know him.”

Phil was quiet for a minute, and then he stood, ready to go in and get dressed for the day. “Sometimes, just being offered help without having to go ask for it is what someone needs.”

Bruce wanted to see Clint again.

There was something incredibly compelling about him, and Bruce wanted to see him and invite him around for dinner or coffee and just talk to him. It wasn’t all about him needing help. It was also the gleam in his eye when he looked at the kitten, the fierceness in his jaw when he explained what happened to the dog, the softness of his gaze when he finally settled after his panic attack.

He reminded Bruce of someone who hated how little control they had over themselves, who wished they were different, who knew who they wanted to be but didn’t know how to get there. He really reminded Bruce of himself before he and Phil settled down together.


	2. Missing part of Chapter One!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil's not sure what's happening, but things are changing for sure. For someone who prefers to be in control of situations, he's feeling pretty out of his depth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my original plan was to always post the Bruce POV and the Phil POV stuff as one chapter with a POV shift in the midst. I forgot that yesterday, so here's the Phil bit!

Business-talk over cooking was typical, but Phil wasn’t sure how Bruce would take his idea. While Phil did handle most of the financials, Bruce had a bit of a fear of the business tanking. He expected surprise here from Bruce, and he got it.

“What? We’re solvent enough to do that? Are you sure?” Bruce asked, and he stood up and moved closer to the grill.

It was a gorgeous early fall night and Phil’s love of their house and its deck with a built in bench and a picnic table was overflowing. It was about sixty-five degrees out, and they had four torches lit around the deck to keep the mosquitos away. Bruce had strung Christmas lights around the inner edge of the deck rails, too, and they twinkled in the dusk.

Phil turned and sipped his beer as he contemplated the answer. He loved Bruce, but getting him to take chances was sometimes hard. “I think we can do it. Business is pretty good, and we’re asking Natasha a lot when we ask her to act as front end manager and a tech. I’m thinking part time to start, maybe Sarah down at the Rec Center has someone we could use. You know, someone who needs a job. 

“She’ll send us a teenager, Phil. Only teenagers hang out at the Rec Center. Believe me, I know this. They look at me like I’m a fossil when I go over to lift.”

“Maybe she’ll know someone who’s not a teenager.”

“Teenagers make me nervous.”

“Why?”

“I was a sullen asshole as a teenager.”

Phil almost suggested that Bruce using his own childhood horror-show as an example of what other teens are might not be fair, but he decided against it. He never liked bringing up Bruce’s family. It had been known to send him into a week of struggling to get out of bed. “I can ask her specifically to recommend a non-teenager, if you want.”

“Maybe Natasha knows someone?” Bruce suggested.

“She spends her free time alone, dancing, or hanging around Nick Fury. I’m not sure she’s got a lot of people in her life to recommend.”

“What about Nick?”

Phil just raised an eyebrow at the ludicrous suggestion.

“Okay, you’re right. Nick won’t help.” Bruce took a drink of his own beer and looked out into the yard. “We can afford someone else?”

Phil sighed and leaned in to rub Bruce’s shoulders. “Yes. I’ve run it past our accountant and she thinks it's a good idea. No way to grow the business if we’re all being pulled too many directions.”

Bruce shifted in his chair and looked up at Phil. “Um. About different directions,” he said quietly.

Something about his tone sent a thread of panic through Phil. If Bruce has a fear of the business crashing, Phil has a fear of everything else crashing. Bruce’s tone sounded like everything else. ”What?”

“I’ve been thinking of trying to get on at the Community College to teach a class. You know, basic bio or something, at night, after we close.” His voice was low, hesitant.

It reminded Phil of how he used to talk when they first met, fifteen years ago in school. When Phil met Bruce, Bruce was scared of his own shadow most of the time, except when he and Phil would stay up all night in their dorm, talking about dreams and wishes and possible paths. Right now, to Phil, the possible path Bruce was looking at seemed like a departure. “You’d be gone, what, two nights or three nights a week?” Phil asked, and he immediately knew that was the wrong answer.

“I don’t know, Phil. I just thought I’d look into it. I mean, a couple nights out wouldn’t be a big deal, right?” He paused. “Plus it would bring in some extra cash for projects around here. You’ve been eyeing gazebos for the backyard,” he said with the warm smile that always anchored Phil.

Phil nodded. “Okay. I mean, it’s your decision, really. If it’s something you'd like to do.”

Bruce stood and opened the screen door to go inside. “I’ll look into it,” he said, and Phil watched him disappear inside to get the rest of dinner ready. It felt like something important just happened. He took another drink of his beer and flipped the fish over on the grill one more time and pulled out his phone. He texted Nick, “Can you hang out later this week?” And chuckled when he got back, “Sure, if Natasha’s invited, too. We’re booked together most nights this week since my office is slow right now.”

He texted back, “Of course. She’s always invited.” Natasha and Nick had fallen together over the last year. They weren’t dating per se – Nick’s job kind of sucked for that sort of formal designation of a relationship – but whenever Nick was in town, he and Natasha tried to spend as much time together as they could. Phil felt a little proud of introducing them after he’d hired Natasha at the vet clinic. She was good for Nick.

She was good for the clinic, too, and finding someone else to take some of her responsibilities would make her even better for the clinic, and since Phil and Bruce would always love their little practice they’d built in Phil’s old neighborhood, anything good for the clinic was good for them. Phil also knew that if Bruce wanted to go teach a class, it wasn’t something he should get worried about, but they had been together for a very long time. If this was some indication that Bruce was bored with the status quo, finally, then what else might he be bored with?

Phil didn’t like the only answer he could come up with.

A couple weeks later, the front door to the clinic rattled and Phil looked up from his paperwork. It was late, almost seven, and Phil had simply forgotten to lock the front door. He didn’t expect anyone to come in. It was Clint, and Phil smiled when he saw him. Phil didn’t know anything at all about him, but the lines on his face spoke of experience, and he and Bruce had agreed that he was a decent guy, from what they could tell. “Hi,” Phil said, setting down his pen.

Clint looked around with his eyes narrowed. “You guys okay?”

Phil looked around, too, trying to see what Clint was looking for. “Yes. Bruce isn’t here, though. Were you looking for him?”

Clint shrugged and came over to the counter. He leaned his elbows on it and looked at Phil’s paperwork. “You guys aren't usually here this late. I thought something might be wrong.”

Phil blinked. While he and Bruce were a permanent fixture in the neighborhood now, people didn’t usually check up on them or ask how they were doing. They said hello on the street and stopped to chat if they were at a restaurant or store together, but this display of concern was definitely new. “Oh, no. I’m okay. Bruce started his class tonight, so I just thought I’d stay here and get some work done instead of going home.”

He didn’t mention that he was hesitant to spend an evening at home alone. He didn’t mention that he was worried that Bruce would like being away from Phil and working somewhere else, or that the panic that had gripped Phil when Bruce showed him the contract he’d signed at the college welled up whenever he thought about it. He didn’t mention that.

Clint bit his lip and nodded. “Oh. What class is he taking?”

Phil chuckled. “He’s teaching a section of Physiology at the community college. It just started.”

Clint put his palms on the counter. “Really? That’s really cool. I bet he’s a good teacher.”

Phil agreed. “Yeah, I imagine he will be. He was really nervous, though. He’s never taught a class before.” He smiled at the memory of how many times Bruce had changed shirts when he was laying out what to wear that morning. How Bruce had skipped lunch because his stomach was in knots, how Phil had to remind him that he was the one with the degrees, and the students were going to be nervous, too.

“Huh. Teachers get nervous? Never thought about it.”

“Don’t tell him I told you, but he changed shirts three times this morning.”

Clint laughed, and they were quiet for a moment; Clint tapped Phil’s paperwork with his finger. “Looks like you’re having fun,” he said, and there was understanding in Clint’s voice.

“Beats being at home alone tonight,” he replied, and then wondered if he’d said too much. He hardly knew Clint.

Clint just nodded. “Yeah. Well, I’m glad you’re okay. I was afraid I’d be breaking up a robbery or something.” He stood back up and crossed his arms over his chest as he backed to the door. “I’ll leave you to it. Sorry to interrupt.”

Phil didn’t really want him to leave – company would be good tonight – but Clint looked like he needed to leave. “Thanks for checking on me. I’ll let Bruce know you stopped by.” He watched as Clint gave a little wave and left. Phil watched him go, and smiled at the thought of Clint trying to protect them.

The next night Bruce had class, Phil stayed late at the office again. He actually wasn’t working; Natasha said she and Nick would come by and take him out for a drink once Nick was off of work, but he was still fighting his nerves about Bruce starting something new, and the office seemed better than home. He was just making some list of things he needed to do around the house and office to get ready for winter when the door rattled again and Clint slipped inside.

Phil started to say hello, but then he realized that Clint was pale and shivering from the fall air. “Hey,” he said, “Sit down, okay?” He came around the counter as Clint slumped into a chair and hugged himself tightly.

“Sorry,” he said, and his voice was rough. He blew a breath out between pursed lips, and Phil knelt down in front of him.

“Clint, what’s wrong?” He asked, and tried to keep his voice as gentle as he could until he figured out what he was dealing with here.

“Just needed to sit for a second. I’m sorry. I like – “ he started, and then bit his lip, hard.

“It’s okay, Clint,” Phil said. “Do you want some water?” When Clint just nodded, Phil stood and went to the small refrigerator behind the counter to get a bottle. When he got back to Clint’s side, he’d unfurled a little and was holding his head in his hands. Phil held the water out and Clint took it with shaking hands. He drained in one long drink, and Phil took the bottle and put it in the bin.

He knelt down again and took a hard look at Clint. His head was back in his hands, and Phil saw that he was dirty. Phil hadn’t noticed that the last time they talked, but today Clint’s hair was greasy, his face was smudged with dirt, and his clothes looked like he’d had them on for days. Phil hadn’t been sure that Clint was homeless before, but he certainly wondered now. It was that or he’d hit a really, really rough time.

“Clint,” Phil said. “How can I help?”

Clint just shrugged.

“Would more water be good?”

Clint nodded, and Phil grabbed another bottle. Clint drank it slower, but he still didn’t talk, and he was still shaking.

“Did something happen to you tonight?” Phil asked. He tried to keep his tone even, business-like, so Clint didn’t think he was trying to pry.

Clint looked up at him then, and his greenish blue eyes were filled with pain. “I like your waiting room,” he whispered. “It’s homey and safe.” He sucked in a harsh breath. “I just needed safe for a minute. I’ll get out of your way,” he added, and started to stand.

Phil reached out and pushed him gently back into the chair. “Stay. I’ve still got some work to do before I close up, so just…stay.”

He stood, figuring Clint would talk if he wanted to, that his non-answer about what happened was enough of an ‘I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it’ for Phil to leave it alone and respect his privacy. He went back over to the front counter and went back to his paperwork, as he tried to ignore Clint’s harsh breaths and occasional shifts in the chair to clench at his hair. He didn’t seem sick or hurt, but he was clearly having another anxiety attack. If he didn’t settle soon, Phil would have to call for help.

He did settle, though, after about ten minutes, and after he released a shuddering sigh, he stood and came to where Phil was working. He clasped his hands together like he wasn’t sure what to do with them. “I, uh, appreciate this,” he said, and Phil just met his gaze and nodded. Clint ran a hand down his face. “I get freaked out sometimes. I'm sorry for invading your place.”

Phil put his pen down and shook his head. “You can come in whenever you need to, Clint. I understand.” And he did. He’d seen enough incidents of PTSD during his stint in the Army to know what he was looking at. Bruce had mentioned it as a possibility and for Phil this confirmed it.

Clint nodded and looked around the old house-turned-office. “This is a good place,” he said quietly, and then headed toward the door. “Thanks again.”

Phil didn’t think, just blurted out, “You can stay.”

Clint stopped and stared at the floor for a moment, and then shook his head. “No. I’m good,” he said, and then he left.

Phil blew a hard breath out and closed his eyes. If there was one thing he knew about Clint besides his obvious kindness and care for animals and a smile that needed to shine more often, was that he probably wasn’t good right now. There was nothing Phil could do, though, so he went back to his paperwork and wondered how Bruce was doing with his class. When Natasha and Nick came by later, he kept Clint’s visit to himself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint doesn't claim he's trying. He knows he's not. But maybe, just maybe, trying again will be a good idea. He's probably an idiot for hoping, but he's also never claimed he's smart.

Clint didn’t see or hear his captors _every_ day. Every night, though, yeah.

Every. Fucking. Night.

During the day, he could go awhile without a flashback. Showers helped. Keeping himself clean and fed was so different from when they had him that he could pretend to be normal. But if he slipped, if he ended up on the roofs for more than a couple of days because he couldn’t drag himself down, because there was nothing to do and everyone looked at him like he was crazy, sick, needy, well, then he slipped and they came back with a vengeance.

When he found the kitten it was good, though. It had been a long time since he’d felt good, like he’d done something _right_ , and when Dr. Banner called Natasha and said he could fix the cat’s leg, Clint knew he’d done well. The gleam in Dr. Banner’s eyes as he looked at Clint felt different and warm.

Seeing Natasha again felt good, too.

“Why won’t you come to your appointments?” she’d asked him one time, after he got back the first time. “Why won’t you let us help you?”

He liked her voice. He liked how she didn’t assume he was crazy, but tried to help. He liked how she didn’t judge him, with her voice or with her eyes, how she knew how hard it was to be around people who’d never killed someone, how people who had never killed looked at you and saw right into your heart and saw the black mark on your soul. She knew that, he could tell.

“Why don’t you leave me alone?” he’d jabbed back.

She’d smiled at him and said, “Because I have red in my ledger, too, and I got help and got better.”

He’d walked away then because fuck her. She didn’t know. No one’s ledger bled more than his, and he had the medals to prove it. They were tucked in a purple Crown Royale bag and stuffed in his coat pocket and he never, ever looked at them. But he had them, and they were dripping with blood.

His fingers were dripping, now. He’d thrown his leg over the ledge to the roof and stumbled onto the gravel, and he slipped into a crouch and rubbed his fists in the loose rock until he felt the blood.

When Dr. Banner showed him the kennel room, he’d been thrown back to that cave with the cages, the gleaming metal that closed him in, the gaps in the bars that let them throw steaming water on him, let them push cattle prods through until he squirmed and threw up in pain. He was back in the cages that held him while they pressed electric current through his skin and bones until he shook uncontrollably and pissed himself only to have to sit in it for hours and hours with the stench filling his nostrils. He ended up curled in a ball shuddering with dry heaves after the electricity every single time, but his cage bars always gleamed bright and clear.

Now he looked around the roof and realized he was curled in a ball against the ledge and his hands were bleeding. He let them bleed until they stopped, a thin crust forming over the top of his knuckles. The sun started to set and he pulled the thin blanket with a Yankees logo on it out of his pack and wrapped himself up. It was still early fall. He could sleep here. Maybe he’d feel up to going to the shelter for a shower in the morning.

He didn’t, not in the morning. The sun came up bright and strong and warm for a day in September, and Clint let the light beat against his eyelids until his face was hot. He stuffed the blanket under his head like a pillow and let the sun warm the rest of him until he dozed again. Then the dream of the cage chased sleep into screams and he woke more fully this time.

He was so tired.

A scraping against the side of the building startled him out of another light doze, and he rolled into a crouch and watched as Natasha swung her legs over and hopped down from the fire escape. She was dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting red cable knit sweater, she had a backpack slung over her shoulder, and her face was flawless even though she was frowning at him. He always loved how her face was flawless, even though she had blood in her past like him. His face was crusty and scraggly and he swore every line that creased his forehead looked etched in with a bloody knife. He blinked hard as he stared at her. His thoughts should be clearer after all this sleep.

“How did you find me?”

“I watched you last night. Figured once you had a place you’d stay put.” She pulled a bottle of water out of her pack and offered it to him.

He uncapped it and drank the whole thing in one pull. “What do you want?”

She shrugged. “Bruce asked about you this morning. Said if I knew where you were I should find you and get you to come back to the clinic. He and Phil want to help you.”

“Why?” Clint liked Bruce and Phil the few times he’d met them. Bruce had kind eyes, but there was something underneath them, something intriguing and maybe a little dark. His smile sent the memory of a thrill through Clint’s body when he turned it on Clint.

“They like helping strays?” She smiled at him and pulled an apple out her pack like she was Mary Poppins or something. She threw it at him and he caught it, stared at it for a moment, and then took a bite.

“How do they figure they could help me?” Clint said around a mouthful of juicy apple.

“I told them you probably needed a job.”

“Fuck you, Natasha.” A job. That sounded ridiculous. He’d tried, before, but his shaking hands, the way hallways always seemed to close around him, how his erratic sleep schedule made him tired all the damned time – all of that had forced him back on the streets.

“Do you need a job?” she asked. “Their business is strong. I’m too busy helping with actual appointments to do some of the crappier things around there.”

“Found me a crappy job you know I won’t be able to keep, then, huh?”

She sat down and leaned back against the edge of the roof, looked around at the view of the city. She didn’t say anything for a couple minutes, so he sighed and sat down next to her. He finished his apple before he threw the core aside and rested his wrists on top of his drawn up knees. He picked at a small hole in his jeans.

“You looked for me at the shelter, right?” he asked, staring out at the city.

“You don’t sleep there much. I asked about you and they said you just take a shower and grab a little food every couple days. I looked around for you after. . . but I don’t think you stayed around here then.” Her voice was distant, like she was remembering as she spoke.

“No. I left for a while.”

“You didn’t have to. You could’ve stayed with me. I told you that,” she replied, and she turned to face him. She didn’t look accusing. Just resigned.

“We tried to be together. It didn’t work.” He remembered feeling caged in a different way with her. She was too sharp around the edges. He got claustrophobic when he tried staying with her and sleeping with her and being with her. She was too close.

“I know, but you could have stayed with me at my place. I would have helped.”

“There’s no way to help.” He stood and walked over to the opposite edge of the roof, leaned against the short wall and looked down.

“Bruce and Phil said you could work for them. They’ll pay you above minimum, and Phil said he could finagle some benefits. Enough for some meds.” She didn’t specify which type, but he knew it wasn’t hard to figure out what he probably needed.

“Don’t want meds.”

“You get used to them. Then the docs back them down until you don’t need them. It’s how it works.”

“A job. Really?” he asked, and turned to face her again. She was smiling at him and she moved close, brushed her hand down his cheek.

“It’s somewhere to start, Clint. Phil was military. He understands.”

“And Bruce?”

“He makes house calls to people who are too sick to bring their pets in for care. He convinced Phil to have ‘pro-bono Sundays’ and open the clinic for free. He cooks a mean pad Thai and brews the best tea I’ve had since I was a young girl. He understands, too.”

Clint closed his eyes. It was somewhere to start.

***

Now he stood in the lamp lit foyer of the clinic and said to Bruce, “I can’t clean the cages or, um, probably even go in the kennel.” This seemed important. If he almost bit through his bottom lip when he finished talking, well, Bruce ignored it. They moved to the lobby, with its oak floor and oak window sills, and Bruce offered Clint one of the maroon chairs. He just shook his head and couldn’t bring himself to sit. He stood with his arms crossed tight across his chest and looked at the floor.

“That’s okay. We can use your help cleaning the evaluation rooms and with some stocking and supply tasks. And maybe intake, if you’re interested.” Clint figured Bruce must be really good at ignoring crazy because he didn’t do anything other than stand next to him and act as if this was a perfectly normal way to conduct a job interview.

“Is it computer work?” Clint asked, because yeah, he’d never actually worked on a computer except to fill crap out in the Army from time to time. Non-traditional education or whatever they were calling ‘sixth grade dropout’ and military help on a GED these days.

“Uh, yes,” Bruce answered, scrunching his mouth a little in confusion.

Clint tried not to sigh. “I don’t have much experience with a computer. Like, any.” He figured that was honest enough. He didn’t need to admit to his non-traditional education, he really didn’t.

“Oh, okay,” Bruce said, and it was weird to Clint because it sounded like he meant it was really okay. “We can teach you if we need to.”

Clint nodded and listened to Bruce explain the basics some more. He tried not to fidget, but fuck. He couldn’t remember the last time someone tried to teach him something. Afghanistan, probably. Fuck.

“So Phil and I thought you could start with six hours a day.”

Clint didn’t mean to clench his jaw and tighten his arms to his chest, but he did, and Bruce noticed.

“Too much?” he asked gently, and he even stepped back from Clint a little.

Clint didn’t know. He knew it sounded like a lot, but he would be the first to admit his perspective was screwed. He hadn’t spent six hours inside in one spot since, well, probably before the ARMY. “I think you’re nuts for even offering me a job, okay? I mean. . .” He meant to list a bunch of reasons, but his voice stopped working.

“We can adjust it, okay?” Bruce answered, ignoring Clint’s assessment of the offer.

Clint just stood there, and it felt like Bruce was talking to someone else. Not him. No one took a chance on him anymore. They’d be stupid to.

“Okay. Uh, the only thing to finalize is some paperwork so you can get paid. We need an address, but –“

Clint cut him off. “I don’t have a place,” he said quickly. “Dr. Banner, I don’t have a place,” he repeated. “I don’t know how to use a computer, I can’t do anything in the back half of your whole fucking building unless you want me to have another breakdown, and I don’t have a permanent address for you to use. I should go. This is stupid.”

“So, do you want to start tomorrow?” Bruce asked anyway, and Clint looked at him with a fierce glare. He didn’t need to be fucked with.

“I don’t think I should work for you,” he said slowly, like he was explaining to a child. “I can’t work in half your building, I haven’t stayed in one room for more than an hour in over a year, I can’t use a computer and I don’t have an address. Have you been listening?” The edge of hysteria crept into his voice, and Bruce noticed it.

He took a small step back from Clint and put his hands up. “Listen,” he said, and Clint felt his body relax a margin just from the genuine sound of Bruce’s voice. It was like a balm. “Natasha said we can use her address for now, and we want to help you.”

Clint’s mouth fell open a little before he snapped it shut and said, “Why? You don’t even know me.”

“We want to help and you need a break. Phil and I are willing to work with you to try and give you that break. We want to help,” he repeated, like if he said it enough times it would just _work_.

They stood and stared at each other for a moment, and Clint took in the small smile pressed into Bruce’s lips, the relaxed slope of his broad shoulders, the way he kept his hands down, in front of him where Clint could see them. When he was a kid he’d have wanted to slump into him for a hug. Instead, Clint drew a shaky breath.

“Okay,” he said, and Bruce’s smile appeared full-on. It took Clint by surprise and he couldn’t help how he grinned in response, a quick thing as he shook his head at Bruce. “You know what you’re getting into and I appreciate the chance.” He did appreciate it, but really, the sooner they got this clusterfuck of an idea started, the sooner he’d flame out and get back to just surviving.

“Tomorrow morning,” Bruce said, stepping back and heading to the counter. “Whenever you’re comfortable, come in and we’ll do an overview. You can work as long as you want, and we’ll just keep a good record of your hours and go from there.”

Clint didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded, looked around the room again, and left.

Clint hadn’t actually planned anything in at least a year, not since he’d given up entirely on getting any help from the VA and stopped bothering to make appointments that were completely useless anyway. “If you could paint a self-portrait right now, what colors would you choose?” did not seem like a useful question at all. He’d answered purple and a silver glitter pen and the shrink had been silent for a full five minutes. His hesitant “why?” was too little, too late as far as Clint was concerned.

He did have a bank account for a while, drawing his Army pension and adding up until the bank wised up to the fact that Clint didn’t have a permanent address anymore and closed his account. The envelope with that paperwork was stuffed at the bottom of the backpack Clint never let out of his sight, but he had never actually looked at it. If keeping his money meant having an address, he figured it was impossible.  The VA money wasn’t enough for rent anyway, and he sure as hell couldn’t work to make up the difference, so that was that.

He wasn’t looking at anything as he wandered mindlessly down the street, so when Natasha appeared in front of him, he didn’t notice and nearly ran her over. She sidestepped and fell into step with him.

“You’re staying with me for a while,” she said, without even slowing down.

He kept walking and didn’t answer. She let him keep quiet for a few minutes, but then she steered them toward a bus stop and he stopped and glared at her. “You’re messing with me.”

“No. I told Bruce you could use my address. Figure you could use it officially, too.”

“Natasha,” he said. He wasn’t sure what to do. He was grateful, and he could use a roof if he was actually going to give this whole ‘Joe Average’ life a chance, but it didn’t sit right.

She stepped closer and reached out for his arm, touching it lightly. “You didn’t have to run the first time. Just because we didn’t work that way didn’t mean you had to run.”

He didn’t answer, just looked away and remembered the fear of disapproval, the panic at not measuring up, the need to get away and do something on his own since he couldn’t give her what she needed. That feeling of flight was rising like a lump in his throat right now, and she saw it.

“You ran back to the Army and I understand why, but you didn’t have to. You could have stayed. I can be your friend, Clint. I can help you. Stay with me this time and get things sorted. At least long enough to see if the job works for you.”

Her voice caught him off guard. It was more sincere, more full of want than it had been even when he was sleeping with her. Even if he couldn’t give her everything, he would always try to give her what he could.

She took him to her place, which was a one bedroom apartment in an old but well-kept building with vines covering it, making it look like something out of an old novel Clint had read when he was bored at her place before. The building was warm and comfortable, and she had hardwood floors and high ceilings. It felt secure. He held his backpack to his chest while she locked the door behind him.

She turned and raised an eyebrow. “Shower or food?” She asked casually.

He held his pack a little tighter. She knew what he needed. “Shower.”

She nodded and led him back to her bedroom. “I got you a few things. Just a couple pairs of pajamas and a couple cheap khakis and shirts. Just to start with,”

He took a breath through his nose. “Natasha,” he started, even though he wasn’t sure where he was going with it. He didn’t have anything. He needed work clothes and to not look like he’d been living on the streets for over a year. He didn’t have much money and she knew it, so he just settled for nodding. “Okay. Thanks.”

She smiled and gestured at the bathroom. “Your pajamas are on the counter with a towel and washcloth. Take your time.”

He watched her leave the room and he rolled his shoulders before he headed into the good sized bathroom. She told him once that the bathroom and wood floors were why she got the place. The bathroom was a soft, periwinkle blue with pale yellow accents, a sink with a big counter space and wrought iron faucets, and a shower curtain with mountains and yellow wildflowers on it. The towel and washcloth she gave him were both a dusty yellow color, and he found himself staring at them for a moment before he shook himself out of it and started to strip.

He was embarrassed at how dirty he was. It had been more than a few days since he last stopped by the shelter for a shower, and his clothes smelled just as bad as he did. It made him angry when he let the filth of the cages get back on him. He turned the water on and made it as hot as he could stand it before he climbed in.

It felt. . . Natural. Right. He let the water sluice over his head and down his neck and back and it felt like the universe clicked into place for just a moment. He wasn’t sure how long he zoned out before he shook his head and reached for the shampoo. He scrubbed his body twice before he finally turned the water off and reached for his towel. He was suddenly aware of how tired he was again.

When he emerged, dressed in the soft red flannel sleep pants and blue long-sleeved t-shirt, Natasha was sitting on her couch thumbing through a magazine. She spoke over her shoulder without looking at him. “There’s a plastic bag on the counter you can put your old clothes in if you want. We can do some laundry tomorrow night.”

He found it, stowed his clothes, and set everything down behind the couch. He sat down heavily next to her and put his head back.

“Don’t sleep yet, okay?” she asked, elbowing him gently.

“Too late,” he mumbled.

“Clint. You need to eat something besides a cereal bar or soup. Come on, I got some Thai food.”

He opened his eyes at that. She knew it was his favorite. “You’re the best,” he said, and pulled himself up off the couch. “Listen, she said as they filled their plates. “I’m seeing a guy named Nick right now. He’s got a job that keeps him away a lot, but he’ll be around. I told him about you.”

Clint had stopped his fork halfway to the box of food, and now he blinked at her and said, “He’s okay with this?”

She met his eyes with a warm smile. “He gets it. His job is . . . . high stress and leads to people who suffer PTSD as well. He also knows what friendship looks like. He’s BFFs with Phil.”

“That how you met him?” Clint asked, and felt something warm at the thought of Natasha finding someone to be her partner, and the smile on her face was . . . different. Good different. He wanted to add that he was so happy for her, that she deserved so much more than she’d ever had, that he would do anything to stay out of the way of her happiness, but he didn’t, because he figured she didn’t really want to hear it.

She nodded and they finished getting their food as she told him a little about Nick. The rest of the night was easy and comfortable. They slipped back into easy conversation as he asked about the clinic while they ate, and then they moved to the couch and she turned on some reality survival show and they made fun of the morons who didn’t know what the word ‘survive’ actually meant. When he finally yawned and couldn’t keep his eyes open it was two hours later.

“Stand up for a minute, will you?” She asked. “I’ll pull the couch out.”

It was a hide-a-bed couch, and she had soft sheets and a plush, thick blanket on top. It looked like heaven to him. He used the new toothbrush she had for him in the bathroom, wrapped her in a quick hug and mumbled ‘thank you,’ and then crawled into the first bed he’d slept in for months. He was asleep before she closed her bedroom door.

Of course he came awake screaming three hours later. Natasha was there, quietly calling his name, and when she knew he was alert enough, she wrapped him in a gentle hug and held him until he stopped shaking.

“Come to my bed,” she whispered into his hair.

“No,” he answered, pulling back. “What about Nick?”

 “He’s cool,” she replied, and pulled him close again. “He’s also very understanding, and I’m not asking you for sex right now. I’m asking you to let me help you. So don’t be an idiot. Come to bed.”

She gave him a hard glare, sat that way for a full minute, and then smiled softly when he finally huffed and pulled himself up off the couch. She was right in all the unspoken things she said, and he actually managed to fall back asleep in her arms and sleep undisturbed until the alarm.

When he arrived at the clinic shaved, having had breakfast and coffee, and dressed in clean clothes, he saw Bruce’s attempt to hide his double take and just grinned. “I’m ready to try this, boss,” Clint said, and Bruce nodded.

“Good. We’re glad you’re here.”

Phil entered the lobby from the back and Clint felt the best kind of warm when Phil smiled and said, “Thanks for coming in, Clint.”

“Thanks for giving me this shot,” Clint said with a shrug.

Of course, he made it all of two and a half hours before he was freaking the fuck out.

Bruce was patient with him when he showed him the cleaning supplies and how they liked to have the lobby and halls done, and Phil was friendly when he showed him where their vet supplies got dropped off and where everything went in the back room. Phil even ignored Clint’s wary glances at the entry to the kennel area as he talked, just tugging Clint’s elbow gently so that he couldn’t see the entry and could focus on what he was explaining. Clint set to work sweeping, mopping, wiping down tables and chairs, cleaning the windows and unloading supplies, but by eleven his hand was shaking and he couldn’t keep his eyes on one thing for more than a second.

Bruce noticed. “Hey,” he said as Clint was putting the broom away behind the counter. “Do you mind taking a break and picking up lunch from Kelly’s Diner for us? We have a standing order there and it’s on an account, so if you could just pick it up for us that would be a big help.”

Clint sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. He nodded. “Sure, that’d be fine.” He knew Kelly’s was three blocks away and it would take him at least twenty minutes to get down and back. He was grateful.

“We added a burger and strawberry shake to the order for you, too,” Bruce said with a small smile. “Natasha told us what you like.”

“You didn’t have to -” Clint started, but Bruce waved him off.

“It’s standard. Comes with the job, so don’t worry.”

Clint thought about arguing, but a strawberry shake from Kelly’s wasn’t anything to dismiss easily, so he shrugged and threw his coat on. “Okay. Thanks. I’ll be back in a bit.”

He took his time, enjoyed the sunshine and the fresh air, and was back at the clinic in thirty minutes. He might’ve had a fleeting desire to set the food on the front steps and retreat to a rooftop for the rest of the day, but he swallowed it down and headed back inside. “Do you mind if I sit out here for just a few more minutes while I eat?” he asked Bruce.

Bruce agreed, and Clint took his paper wrapped burger and his shake to the side steps to the building. After a few minutes, Phil sat down next to him.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked politely.

Clint liked Phil, although he was different than Bruce. Where Bruce was raw sincerity and kindness oozing from every pore, along with a body that made Clint want to lose himself in his arms, Phil was reason and caring and cool competence. Clint suspected he might be in trouble with how attracted he was starting to feel toward Bruce, but he _knew_ he was in trouble with how Phil made him feel. He scooted a little to make just a bit more room. They ate in silence for a few minutes, and then Phil spoke carefully, his tone measured and clearly calculated.

“I wanted to ask you something, and maybe the first day isn’t the best day, but I didn’t feel like I could wait,” Phil said, wiping his mouth with a napkin and turning to look at Clint. His blue eyes were filled with a worry that Clint wasn’t sure of.

“Okay,” Clint answered, and he couldn’t help how closed off he sounded. Phil was making him nervous.

“Bruce and I have a friend; his name is Sam Wilson, and he works as a psychiatrist over in Bexley.”

Clint pulled farther away on the step. This felt like a set-up. “Yeah? So what?”

“I know we don’t know you very well, but he could work with you a little bit to see what you might need, and he has some connections to the VA and might be able to expedite their processes a little bit in your favor.”

Clint had to hand it to Phil. He got all of that out without making it sound like charity, even though it clearly was. His voice was even, though, and not condescending at all. It made Clint stop before snapping at him to leave his nose out of things.

Phil saw the opening for what it was. “I know it seems like charity, and I suppose it’s certainly nothing we _need_ to do as your employers,” he said evenly, “But I was in the military and I know what kinds of things can happen, so I know that the only way to get through something as severe as what you’re facing is with medical help. I can help you get it. That’s it.” He shrugged his shoulders and added, “Besides, it might help you be a stronger employee, so that would help us. It’s not entirely selfless on our part.”

Clint kind of only heard the part where Phil was ex-military and knew what Clint might be facing. He sat in silence, unsure of what to do with the information. He sipped his milkshake and let the sun beat down on his face.

“Clint?” Phil asked.

“Yeah. Okay,” Clint said.

Phil smiled, and Clint seemed to feel the smile in his own chest like it was a warm blanket. “Yeah?” Phil asked.

“I’ll talk to your friend. Natasha keeps telling me to let people help, and you guys seem decent, so…” he trailed off. He couldn’t think of it too much. Talking to a shrink was near the top of Clint’s list of things he hated most in the world, but he had to admit that the only ones he’d ever tried to talk to were overworked caseworkers with limited resources and time. Not ideal for anyone.

“Good. I’ll call Sam and see when he can meet with you this week.” Phil stood up and stretched. “Come on back whenever you’re ready, Clint.”

Clint just nodded and wondered what he’d done to deserve these people being so kind. Nothing, he figured. Just a temporary lull in his shitty life.

He’d take it.

***

Sam Wilson wasn’t what Clint expected. Of course, since he’d agreed to meet Clint wherever he wanted and Clint chose his favorite rooftop, Clint was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was laid back, to begin with. Didn’t sound like he could pressure someone if he tried, didn’t look like he’d bully Clint into anything either. Clint wondered if sometimes the VA purposefully looked for big, burly psychiatrists just in case they had to restrain someone.

Sam didn’t look the type. He grinned a lot, too, which was weird. It started when he climbed over the low wall of the roof from the fire escape and pulled his grey pea coat a little tighter around his neck. “Oh, man. This is awesome. What a great spot!” he said, wandering the edge of the roof and looking out over the city. He looked back at Clint and grinned wildly. “I’d come here all the time, too, man. I mean, I might even start now that I know it’s here. This is a beautiful view.”

Clint just nodded and leaned on the wall.

Sam looked around for a little longer and then moved to stand next to Clint. “You come up here a lot?”

“Yeah,” Clint said. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Before I moved in with Nat last week I slept up here when I could. No one ever comes up.”

“I get it.” Sam paused and let the silence stretch for a minute. “Okay. Well. Look, I don’t really know what I can do other than maybe find a good starting point for you. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve tried before that didn’t work?”

Clint took a deep breath, and then explained how the sessions at the VA were few and far between and how they just wanted to throw him on medication but he refused.

“Why’d you refuse the meds?”

Clint looked up at the clear blue sky. “They make me fuzzy. Out of control. I didn’t have a place to live, and being out of control on the streets is no good. I tried to tell them that, but that was their only solution.”

“Now you have a place to stay,” Sam started.

“I hate meds. I was in the Army and when I got back from the op that. . . Led to my discharge, they put me on them. I was a fucking zombie.”

“If no one’s helping you adjust your dosage or if you’re not telling folks that they’re making you feel that way, they do suck.” They stood in silence, and then Sam asked, “Do you sleep much?”

Clint laughed. “Nope. I mean, I’m tired. Fuck am I tired. But a couple hours in and I’m thrashing awake. It helps being at Natasha’s place ‘cause I can go back to sleep for a bit, but never more than a couple hours at a time.”

“We could start there,” Sam said, looking at Clint. “I can prescribe a low dose med just at night that won’t mess you up but might help you stay asleep.”

Clint didn’t say anything, just shoved his hands deeper in his jeans pockets.

“Listen,” Sam said. “I can help you. From what Bruce described you’re dealing with some serious PTSD and panic attacks. We can work through it. It won’t be perfect and it probably won’t ever go away entirely, but sleeping through the night and fewer attacks are a good goal to start with.”

There was a frank sincerity and a bit of ‘I’ve been there’ in Sam’s voice that reminded Clint of Phil. Clint liked him. They climbed down so Sam could get some paperwork for Clint to sign. Bruce showed up later with a bottle of pills and Clint shoved them in his pocket with a quiet, “Thanks.”

Nat’s apartment was warm, dry, and safe. Clint knew that between the meds Sam arranged, better food on a more regular basis, and a warm bed.

 Now he’s sleeping better and is more rested than he’s been since he left Natasha the first time and ran back to the Army. When he left her, he was eight months into his stint before the catastrophe happened, and it was eight months of trying to shake the feelings of inadequacy their failed attempt at a relationship had left.

The fact was that he’d tried two serious relationships in his adult life (Bobbi was the train wreck that had sent him into the Army in the first place, where he met Natasha) and had failed miserably at both. What kind of man was he that he couldn’t make it work with someone as amazing as Natasha (or Bobbi for that matter)? So he worked harder overseas, tried harder to forget her.

Forgetting Natasha Romanov is not an easy task.

Now he was back in her space, part of her life, and he wondered if he wasn’t just setting himself up for more failure. He worked at keeping his presence at her place to a minimum. He cleaned his dishes right after he used them, always washed up if she cooked or ordered food for both of them; he wiped the bathroom down after every shower, and he made sure his stuff was neatly stored in his backpack or the small box she’d given him for his things. He made sure it didn’t look to the casual observer that Nat was housing a stray at all.

She noticed.

“What’s going on with you?” she asked one night. She was pulling her hair back into a tight ponytail and pulling her trunk full of workout gear from her bedroom. Clint was sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing. His brain was being an asshole tonight, and he couldn’t choose a TV show to watch or a book from her well-stocked shelves to read. He was twitchy, changing positions on the couch every couple of minutes, and he was trying to think of where he could go in the crappy rainy and freezing weather they were having so he could be out of her way until he was tired enough to sleep.

“Nothing,” he finally replied, but he knew from her frown that he was a beat late in his answer.

She sat on the floor and began stretching. “I know you’re trying to stay out of my way.”

He pulled his knees up to his chest and set his chin on them. “I’m not,” he mumbled.

She switched stretches and he watched her out of the corner of his eye. Watching her work out was something he figured he’d never tire of doing.

“Most nights you stay out until you’re ready to sleep. The only reason you’re probably here tonight is because the weather is so shitty. You eat breakfast and do your dishes, and you practically clean my bathroom for me every morning before packing every little thing into that backpack. You’re trying to make yourself small, and it’s annoying the shit out of me.” She stretched all the way through this tirade, and now she stood and pulled her weights out of the box.

Clint frowned into his jeans. “You want me to leave my dishes out?”

“I want you to be around enough to notice you’re here, that’s what I want, Clint. Bruce asked me how you were doing this morning and I had to admit that I hadn’t actually seen you in four days.”

He stood now, and paced around where she was doing curls. “Why would you want that? You have Nick and a life – places to be and people to be with. You don’t need me,” he said, and it came out snappy. He felt his pulse quicken at the confrontation and he clenched his arms against his chest to hold in the irrational flush of embarrassment that suddenly washed through his body.

She lowered her weights and stared at him. She looked hurt. “Why would I – “ she stopped and took a deep breath and blew it out. “Clint. You’re my friend. I’m trying to help you with the whole ‘keep a roof over your head’ thing, yes, but you’re also my friend, and I enjoy your company.” She paused. “Well, at least I used to.”

That comment hit him the same way any reference to life before the catastrophe did, like an oversized brick right in the chest. He swallowed and felt his breathing quicken. She must have seen something on his face, because she put down the weights and held her hands up as she approached him slowly. “Clint, I’m sorry.”

He blinked against tears and shook his head. “I know I’m bad company, Nat,” he said, and something was wrong with his voice. It was like it didn’t have enough air to make the sounds, and she kept coming until she put her hands gently on his arms. “You don’t have to remind me.”

She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant at all. Come on, let’s sit down, okay?” She gently pushed him to the couch and they sat down together. He tried to keep some distance, but she wasn’t having it. She scooted until she was pressed against his side.

He loved the feel of her, could feel strength radiate from her every time he got close, and it was always reassuring to him. When she reached out and started rubbing his back he wanted to run, because he knew he’d disappointed her years ago, but he wanted to stay because she felt so good and he knew she was his friend.

“Clint,” she said, and her voice, her tenor that did something to relax his nerves every time he heard it, was firm. “I asked you to stay with me. I knew what I was doing when I asked you, and just because we didn’t work out romantically doesn’t mean I don’t consider you one of my closest friends. While you stay here, which is as long as you need, you don’t have to hide. This is your place. I’m your roommate. That’s it.”

He grew up working from a series of debts, and so did she, so he looked up at her in surprise. “I should be doing something to pay my way. I do the dishes and clean up the bathroom because you don’t have to let me stay here.”

“And the avoiding me part? Is that how you’re trying to pay your debt?”

He looked down at the carpet. It was a pale brown with flecks of maroon in it, and he stared until it started to blur. “I figure you need your space, and it’s your space, so you should have it.”

She rubbed his back some more, and put her head on his shoulder. “I like you. You can be around.”

“You used to like me,” he corrected, and she pulled away a little to give him a glare. “It’s true, Nat. You used to like me, you used to know me, but I’m not that guy anymore. I’m just not.”

It was the second worst thing about what happened to him. The nightmares, the shakes, the flashbacks, those were the worst part because they were keeping him from moving on with his life, keeping him on the streets. But it was the fact that he remembered the guy he used to be but had absolutely no idea how to be him anymore that was truly awful. He used to be fun. He used to know how to be around people. He used to have plans and goals and an easygoing personality. Now he felt like he was stuck in a glass box slamming his fist on the lid to get out, while he watched his present self fuck everything up. Like this.

“I know,” she said, and she blew out a breath. “I changed in the Army, too. I saw shit I can’t unsee and I came out the other side different. I know I didn’t get captured or watch my squad get taken out, but I changed. I get that you’re not the guy I knew when we were in together or when we came home and were lovers. I get it, Clint.”

He looked over at her and her face was flushed and her eyes were wet. She never cried, but it looked like she might now. He was a little hung up on the fact that she’d just mentioned the catastrophe without batting an eye. “Why would you want –“ he said, and then his throat closed for a moment and he had to swallow the shame again. “You don’t want me around,” he said.

“Yes, I do. Goddamnit, Clint. You don’t get to decide what I want, and I want you to be here at night. If I need my space I’ll fucking tell you I need it. If you need space you don’t have to wander the whole city to get it. Just tell me and you can crash in my room for a while.” She sounded out of breath.

He looked at her for a moment, and saw the sincerity, the fact that this wasn’t placating bullshit like it might be from others. She did care, and he was stupid to think otherwise. “But what about Nick,” he asked again, because boyfriend, jeez. Surely he didn’t want Clint spending all his free time with his girlfriend.

“Nick’s a guy who has probably seen exactly what you’ve seen, Clint. He knows you need help and he knows I’m not going to sleep with you. Give him a little credit, please.”

“You gonna introduce me?” he asked, guessing the answer.

“Next time he’s in town, yeah, but only because I want you two to know each other. I told him you’d beat him at darts, but he didn’t believe me. I need you to prove me right for a bet,” she said with a smile.

“He thinks he’ll beat me at darts?” Clint asked, leaning into her again, this time putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. “Did you tell him anything?”

“No, so I need you to win the bet for me.”

He nodded and they sat in silence for a few minutes. Just as Clint was beginning to doze, Natasha said, “Maybe we should set up a board in here for you to practice.” He could hear the grin in her voice.

He let his body go limp and when he spoke, it was muffled and a little slurred. “Don’t need ‘ny practice.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance...." - Paul Simon

Three weeks into their work arrangement and Clint was . . . consistent. He showed up for work dressed nicely in khakis and a clean shirt on Monday. He lasted about six hours if he got a couple breaks to go outside, no matter how cold it was getting here in November. Bruce and Phil always sent him to get lunch so he could use it as a break without feeling bad, and he always sprung for dessert sometime during the week as a thank-you.

Tuesday would pass like Monday, and then Wednesday Bruce would see him getting tense by hour four or so. He chewed his fingernails down to the quick, fiddled with rearranging the product shelves in the lobby even if they didn’t need it, and about four and a half hours in would avoid meeting Bruce’s gaze and ask quietly if he could leave. Bruce always said yes. Phil, too, if he was around to ask. Thursday he would show up a little later in the day, but then he’d last a good five hours again. Friday they were lucky if he stayed for four hours, and he’d end the day hunched in on himself and staring at the ground.

Bruce worried, but Clint would always come back on Monday ready to try again. He even stopped by a couple Saturdays and one Sunday just to say hi and hang in the lobby and bring Phil the coffee he liked from the shop a couple blocks away. He brought Bruce his favorite tea, and he offered to clean one of the rooms after a dog threw up in it, even though he wasn’t working. Bruce was so pleased to see him one Saturday, he asked him to come to their house for dinner that night.

“You want me to come over?” Clint asked. He was wearing camo pants and a faded blue sweatshirt, and Bruce saw him glance down at himself as if that wasn’t good enough for the invite.

“Yeah,” Bruce replied as he wrote a quick note about the cat he’d just seen. “We usually get a couple of pizzas on Saturdays and there’s always leftovers. We’ll do a fire in the fireplace and be boring grownups for the night if you don’t come.”

Clint laughed and shook his head. “I’m not exactly great for entertainment. You’ll still be boring grownups with me around.”

Bruce shrugged. “So come on over. Bring Natasha if she’d like to come,” he added as an afterthought.

Clint stared at him for a second and then nodded. “Okay. Thanks. What time?”

That night, around seven, there was a knock on their door and Phil opened it with a smile. Clint stood there in jeans and a green Henley, and held a six pack. Natasha stood a little behind him and Bruce saw her smile at Phil as Clint stepped inside. Bruce couldn’t take his eyes off of Clint.

He’d gotten a haircut, and it was short along the sides and back, but long enough in front to gel straight up. His eyes seemed to pull the green from his shirt into them, and his smile was nervous, tentative. Bruce found himself grinning stupidly, and his heart raced in a way it hadn’t done for years. He looked over at Phil, dressed in a simple blue button up and jeans, and back at Clint. Bruce felt something shift, and he wasn’t going to examine it too closely right now. Clint looked nervous enough for both of them.

“I’ll take that and put it in the fridge,” he said, reaching for the beer.

“Thanks,” Clint replied, and he handed it over. “It’s just a local pale ale. I wasn’t sure what you guys liked, but I figured it’d go good with pizza.” He followed Bruce to the kitchen while Phil and Natasha talked in the living room. He was looking around, taking in the place, and wringing his hands a little at the same time.

“Do you want one?” Bruce asked as he put the beer in the fridge. “I’m going to have one. I love a good pale ale.” He pulled one out as he stood there with the door open and looked back at Clint, who nodded. Bruce pulled another out and set them on the counter. He grabbed a bottle opener off of the refrigerator and opened the beers, leaning back against the counter as he handed one to Clint. “You okay?” He asked quietly.

Clint looked at him sharply and then blew out a breath. “Yeah. Sorry.” He rubbed the back of his neck and took a small drink.

Bruce could tell Clint was tense, but his eyes were steady and clear; he was just nervous. Bruce gave him his most laid-back smile. “We just thought it would be nice to hang out somewhere other than the front step of the office.” He paused. “You want a quick tour of the place? We have two cats, but they’ll probably hide tonight. If you come around some more they might make an appearance.”

Clint said yes, and Bruce guided him through the living room, watched as he lingered over the few pictures of Phil and Bruce and some of their friends, and showed him the bathroom and office and spare room. Clint leaned against the doorway of the spare room when they got there, with a curious look on his face. “Clint?” Bruce asked, stepping to his side and peering into the room. Maybe there was a mouse or something.

Clint pointed to the painting hanging on the wall. “I love that,” he said, and he never took his eyes off of it.

It was an impressionist painting Phil had picked up at an antique mall one day several years ago, and Bruce loved it, too. It was filled with the rich gold and yellow of a field and pale blue sky of Midwestern farmland, with wheat swaying in the bright of the sun. Bruce sometimes came into the room to read just so he could pause and stare at it whenever he wanted. “It’s one of my favorites,” Bruce answered.

Clint hesitated, but then said, “It reminds me of where I grew up, out in Iowa. Lots of farmland out there.”

“How did you end up in New York?” Bruce asked, and immediately regretted it. He really didn’t want to push Clint for information. He just found himself wanting to know more about him.

Clint paused longer this time, as if he were deciding something, but he finally said, “I was in the circus when I was a teenager.”

Bruce couldn’t help the small snort of laughter. It sounded so unreal. “The circus? Really?” He looked up and was grateful that Clint was smiling a little, not mad.

“Yeah. I was orphaned young, and me and my brother didn’t do too well in foster care, so we ran away to the circus – but it wasn’t romantic or anything. It sucked a lot of the time. Some of the time it was cool, though. We saw a lot more of the Midwest than anyone really needs to see. It looked a lot like that painting.”

Maybe Bruce would push a little. This felt so relaxed. “So how old were you when you left the circus?” he asked.

Clint answered immediately this time. “Eighteen. Well. Seventeen, I guess, technically. I had my GED, though, so I joined the Army when I was eighteen. I met Natasha overseas. When I got out the first time I went to New York because I knew she was there. Second time I got out somebody just bought me a ticket back there since it’s where I’d come from that time.”

“You didn’t want to come back to New York?” Bruce asked.

Clint’s voice flattened a little. “I didn’t care. It was fine. That was about a year ago.”

“You’ve been on your own without a place for a year and a half?” Bruce had hardly lasted a month on the streets as a young college student on summer break with nowhere to go. Then Phil found out and dragged him home with him.

“Yeah.” Clint rubbed the back of his neck and looked Bruce straight in the eye. “I’m pretty fucked up, you know.”

Bruce just shrugged. “You’re working on it.” Clint paid his simple answer back with a grin that Bruce felt in his chest. He pulled himself away from the wall. “Natasha and Phil might plot to take over the world if we leave them too long,” Bruce said. Maybe we should go track them down.”

“Plotting to take over the world is kind of her thing,” Clint said. “If it’s Phil’s thing, too, we might be in trouble.”

Bruce laughed, and Clint turned to him like he was surprised at making him laugh, but then he chuckled, too.

The evening passed with such ease that Bruce was thrumming with contentment when he shut the front door behind Clint and Natasha. He went to the kitchen, where Phil was wiping down the counters and putting glasses in the dishwasher. Bruce walked up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist and rested his head on his shoulder. “That was fun,” he said into Phil’s shirt. He felt Phil chuckle and nod. He was quiet, though, and after a moment Bruce pulled away and leaned against the counter. “Are you okay?”

Phil put the last glass in the dishwasher, closed it, and turned to Bruce as he dried his hands on a towel. He was smiling, but there was something in his eyes that made Bruce stand up a little straighter. “You light up when he’s around,” Phil said quietly, and he shrugged. “You light up in a way that I’ve never seen before.” Bruce felt his heart pounding too fast in his chest as Phil added, “It’s nice to see, but it’s different.”

He started to reply, but his tongue got stuck, so he had to try again. “Phil,” was all he managed to get out. He didn’t know what to say, because he didn’t know what Phil needed.

“I’m not accusing you of anything, Bruce,” Phil said, and he stepped forward and ran his warm palm down Bruce’s cheek. “It’s nice to see. That’s all.”

“I don’t -“ Bruce started, and since his brain apparently decided to slow down to the pace of a glacier, he had to try that again, too. “I’m not looking - “ he said, and Phil laughed. There was a tinge of bitterness to it.

“I know you’re looking,” he said, but even that wasn’t accusatory. Phil sounded resigned. Phil, who never backed down from anyone or anything, sounded resigned. Phil, who refused to let Bruce run when they met and Bruce thought no one would ever care if he ran. Phil, who pushed Bruce with such loving support to be his best and do good work even when he felt rotten inside, Phil now sounded resigned.

Bruce blinked, and it felt like time tipped them backward into their old college dorm room late one night when Bruce decided to be bold and kiss Phil for the first time. Bruce felt the passion of new romance, but Phil cut the kiss off quickly. “We need to stop,” Phil had said, sounding small, just like he did now in their kitchen.

Bruce had asked why, and Phil had told him about himself, how he didn’t really want to have sex with anyone, how he’d never felt that desire and how it wasn’t something he wanted to do. He didn’t have a label for it back then, in the early nineties, but he knew he didn’t want sex, and if Bruce needed that, then, well, they’d have to just be friends.

Bruce had told him then, and he repeated it now, “You’re the most important person in my life. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone before, and even if I look, I won’t leave you.”

Phil sighed and leaned into Bruce’s shoulder. “But this feels different.”

Bruce didn’t answer because he didn’t know how. He agreed that there was something different about the way Clint made him feel, but he wasn’t sure how to think about it, so he chose not to. Instead, he pulled Phil to their bedroom, to the soft beige wood floor with the deep maroon tight-weave rug, the matching beige slatted walls, dark cherry platform bed with a maroon quilt, and soft lamp-lit sitting area where their cherry dresser and plush maroon Italian chair sat, clean and inviting. Phil loved this space in their house and if he wasn’t with Bruce he was usually here, reading a book.

Now Bruce guided him to the chair and pushed gently. He knelt down and took Phil’s shoes off for him, deliberately slow. He pulled Phil to his feet, pulled his shirt from his waistband, and pulled it gently over his head. Phil leaned forward and laid his forehead against Bruce’s shoulder for a moment, letting Bruce rub his back. He leaned back and his crystal blue eyes were twinkling again, the way that sent shivers down Bruce’s spine. Bruce carefully undid Phil’s pants, pulled them down and off, and folded them neatly over the back of the chair.

He reached into the dresser and pulled out a pair of navy blue plaid flannel pajamas and laid the pants on the chair. He unbuttoned the shirt and pulled it onto Phil, and buttoned it quickly, rubbing Phil’s broad shoulders with a smile when he finished. He pulled the pants from the chair and knelt down, letting Phil step in, and pulled them up. When he was finished, he ushered Phil to the bed and pulled the covers back as Phil climbed in and laid back with a sigh.

Bruce moved to the dresser and changed into his own pajamas quickly before he crawled under the covers himself and pulled Phil close. He pulled him across his chest so that Phil was draped and hugging gently. Bruce stroked Phil’s hair and whispered, “I love you.”

Phil was quiet, but he nodded into Bruce’s chest and they were both asleep in minutes.

When Bruce climbed into the shower the next morning, though, he could only think of Clint, dressed in green, confessing his brief and difficult history in the doorway of the spare room. Clint with his kaleidoscope eyes and new haircut. Bruce ducked under the hot spray of the shower and closed his eyes. He ran his hand down his chest and over his stomach and down to his dick and sighed. Clint was new and this was scary, but it felt very, very good to think of him with pleasure.

Bruce toweled off a few minutes later and when he met Phil in the kitchen for breakfast, he fought a wave of guilt. Despite Phil’s disinterest in sex, Bruce hadn’t thought of anyone else in particular while he took care of his own needs in a long time.

***

A few days later, as Clint was hitting his breaking point of time inside the office, Bruce found himself watching him carefully. It was as if Clint were a rubber band that someone had wrapped around two of their fingers like a slingshot, and all day he got pulled taut until he couldn’t take it anymore and he sprang forward, out, any direction he could go. Bruce tried different tactics with him to slow the rate of pull, like coffee runs or errands or switching tasks repeatedly so he wasn’t stuck in one spot for too long, but it didn’t work. His pattern of getting pulled tighter and tighter and snapping kept up.

What Bruce didn’t know was what happened when he did snap. He left, and Bruce figured he went back to Natasha’s place, but he didn’t know for sure. It was a slow day at the clinic and they were probably going to close up early anyway, so when Clint shoved a bag of dog food onto a shelf a little too hard and asked if he could leave, Bruce nodded, and shot a text to Phil, who was working in the kennel with a small dog brought in earlier that day, that he was going to lock up and go for a walk. Phil said he’d see him at home, so Bruce grabbed his coat and locked the front door.

Clint was standing on the nearby corner, arms crossed and head down, breathing heavily. Bruce wanted to go to him, but something stopped him. He was curious. He watched Clint heave a deep sigh and shake his head, and he started walking down the street. Bruce followed him, staying a few paces behind and trying to avoid bumping into anyone. When Clint got to a nearby city park, he walked to a bench near a small pond and sat down with his head in his hands and clenched at his hair. Bruce’s instincts told him to leave. He should walk away and give Clint his privacy and go home to meet Phil for dinner like any other day, but he didn’t.

Instead, he walked over to the bench and stood in front of Clint. “Can I join you?” he asked in a soft voice. He was probably going to annoy Clint by being there; he didn’t need to scare him, too.

Clint looked up at Bruce and his mouth fell open a little bit as he leaned back on the bench. “Bruce? What are you - did you follow me from the office?” He sounded more surprised than angry, which made Bruce a little braver.

“Yes? I mean,” he said, and he looked at the bench again. “Can I sit down?”

Clint stared for a second and then nodded. “I guess so.” He scooted a little to make sure there was plenty of room.

Bruce sat down and sighed. “I’m sorry for following you like a stalker or something. I just wondered where you went when you left the office and…” he trailed off and shook his head. “I’m a jerk. I wondered what you did when you left and followed you instead of just asking like a normal human.” He stood, feeling very angry at himself. This was, by far, the dumbest and rudest thing he’d done in years.

Clint cocked his head and looked at the space where Bruce had been sitting. “You can stay. It’s okay.”

Bruce looked around the park. “Are you sure? I can go.”

“Nah, it’s nice that you wondered. Folks don’t usually wonder much about me other than why I can’t keep a job and why I flip out for no fucking reason, so.”

Bruce sat down. “You have reasons.”

“Yeah. Well. I usually come here and watch the birds for a while to calm down, in case you’re still wondering. It’s kinda soothing.”

Bruce pulled his coat closer and nodded. “It’s starting to get colder, though.”

Clint laughed bitterly. “Too stuck in my own head to notice much.”

“What kinds of birds do you see around here? It’s a city. What are city birds?”

Turned out that Clint was a fountain of bird knowledge, and he talked to Bruce eagerly about what he knew. Bruce watched his eyes light back up, and he laughed to himself about how much Clint talked with his hands. It was adorable. After a while, Clint turned the conversation to Bruce.

“Are you from the city?” he asked.

Bruce took a deep breath. Clint knew about Phil’s family and had shared a bit about his own past. It was only fair that Bruce didn’t clam up and dodge. “Yes, but I grew up on the other side of town. Over near the university. My father was a teacher and researcher there.”

“Yeah?” Clint said. “Did you go to college there?”

Bruce nodded and had a sudden memory of his first day of classes, where he’d hoped to get a fresh start, to get away from six years of hell, but where his first professor had been a colleague of his dad’s and looked at him with pity and sadness. Bruce hadn’t counted on people there still knowing his dad. He should have known, but it hadn’t occurred to him. He had just wanted to move to the dorms and away from his grandmother’s house and start over. Bruce had dropped that class an hour later.

“Bruce?” Clint asked, and he was leaning forward, concerned.

“Sorry. Yeah. I went to college there. It was kind of hard with everyone who knew my dad, but I made it through with help from Phil and some other friends.” He said it before he thought about it, but when Clint narrowed his eyes he realized his mistake.

Clint said, “I would think it might be nice to have someone around who knew the system and friends of his who could keep an eye out for you.”

Bruce laughed bitterly. Screw it. “My dad beat me up for most of my childhood and then killed my mom when I was eleven and went to prison for life. Being around others who knew my dad was not a good thing in this instance. I should have thought through going to a local college a little more.” He looked out to the pond and then back at Clint, who was staring at him with an odd look. Bruce laughed a little. “Sorry. That was definitely more information than you asked for. I don’t know why I told you that.”

Clint nodded and looked out at the water. They sat quietly for a minute, but Clint finally said, “I appreciate it.”

“What?”

Clint shrugged. “Telling me about yourself.”

Bruce nodded. “You trusted me with some of your past the other night.” He paused. “It’s how people become friends. Go us.”

Clint laughed. “Yeah. Go us,” he said, and Bruce laughed, too, as he sat back against the bench. They kept talking, and talking, and before Bruce knew it he was shivering in the cold dusk air. They walked together for a bit until they got to where Clint would change direction to go to Natasha’s apartment.

“See you tomorrow, Clint,” he said as he turned the corner toward his house.

“Good night, Bruce. Thanks for stalking me,” Clint replied.

Bruce smiled and waved, and headed home with a sinking feeling. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and saw a couple of missed calls. He’d had his phone off at work and forgotten to turn it back on and Phil had called while Bruce and Clint were talking. Bruce sighed, and picked up his pace.

“I’m not angry,” Phil said after taking one look at Bruce’s face as he shut the front door.

“I’m sorry anyway,” Bruce replied. “I could have called.”

“I was a little worried, but you’re home now. Where did you go?” Phil was serving stew into bowls from a Crockpot while their two cats, Langston and Hughes sat watching on the stools for the breakfast bar.

Bruce picked up Langston, an orange tabby, and sat down on the stool. “I sat with Clint after he left work and talked for a while.

Phil looked over at him and nodded, but went back to getting dinner ready. He poured juice for each of them, pulled out leftover veggies and dip, and set everything out. He sat down and they ate quietly for a moment before Bruce said, “I told him about my father.”

Phil looked up sharply and then raised an eyebrow. “How did that feel?”

“Odd. I haven’t told anyone about it in a long time,” Bruce replied. They both knew that the last person he’d told was Phil, who had held Bruce in his arms as he shook.

“You didn’t have to tell Clint,” Phil said. His words were clipped, and he spoke into his plate, concentrating hard on the fork in his hand.

 “No, I didn’t,” Bruce said, and waited until Phil was looking at him. “He shared some of his story with me the other night when he was over for dinner, and then today he asked about me and what it was like going to college where my dad taught. It seemed fair to share a bit of myself.”

“A bit.”

“Phil,” Bruce began, but Phil stood and shrugged as he took his bowl back to the kitchen.

“I’m tired,” Phil said, “I’m going to go read for a while.

Bruce watched him leave and then put his head down on the table and closed his eyes.

***

Phil tried very hard not to be angry at Clint. He knew nothing Clint had done was wrong – he didn’t even sense any unintentional flirting when he watched him more closely at work. Clint clearly just enjoyed Bruce, and Bruce clearly enjoyed Clint. Phil shouldn’t be angry. But he kept getting flares of fear-tinted rage when he looked at Clint the next day, so he pulled out his phone and called Nick.

“You’re jealous,” Nick stated as he set down his glass of scotch on the oak table. They were sitting in an old pub-style restaurant close to Nick’s apartment.

“Of Clint?” Natasha added, and she pursed her lips. “I think Clint would find that. . . “

“Ridiculous?” Nick finished for her. “You’ve known him for what, two months?”

“About.”

“He’s been to your house once and Bruce sat in the park with him for a while once. Phil,” Nick said, and Phil heard the ‘you’re being nuts’ tone in his voice.

Phil sighed. “I know. But it’s not just Clint.”

Natasha and Nick raised their eyebrows perfectly in sync. If they’d been doing that to someone else, Phil would have laughed. He didn’t feel like laughing right now, though.

“Bruce signed up to teach a class at the community college, before any of this stuff with Clint even really started.”

“’Stuff with Clint,” Natasha said, and her exasperation was clear.

Phil glared at her. “Look. I know I’m being irrational. I get it. I’m also fifteen years into a relationship with someone who sounds an awful lot like they’re getting bored with me.”

“That’s how long-term relationships work, Phil,” Nick said gently. “You have ups and downs. You may very well be in a down right now, but I really don’t think Bruce is going to cheat on you with the stray puppy you guys are trying to help.”

“The stray puppy would be appalled at all of this, by the way,” Natasha added as she sipped her beer.

“He likes Bruce,” Phil countered. “It’s obvious.”

Natasha sighed and set her glass down on the table. “He likes both of you, Phil. He looks at you like you could handle a pack of ninjas. You think he’s only looking at Bruce, but you’re clearly missing how much his relationship with both of you already means.” She paused. “Besides, I have to listen to him babble about both of you at night over pizza.”

Nick nodded. “I’ve heard some of that, too. It’s obnoxious.”

Natasha shrugged, “He gets attached to people.”

Phil looked at them both. They were clearly looking out for him, and if what Natasha said was true, then maybe it was nothing. He thought back to the night Clint and Natasha came to their house, and then to last night when Bruce didn’t bother to call at all about where he was with Clint. He wasn’t sure, but it felt an awful lot like Bruce was falling for Clint. Phil knew what Bruce was like when he turned his attention to someone – Phil had been the one receiving it years ago – and Clint had definitely gotten Bruce’s attention.

The next day, Phil felt like a bad character in a novel, looking for trouble. He watched Bruce and noted that when Clint came in for the morning Bruce’s eyes lit up again. Phil was working on the appointment book and talking to Natasha when Clint arrived, and Bruce’s face went from bored to grinning and warm. Phil noticed. He noticed that Clint went to Bruce first, leaned easily against the counter, and joked with Bruce about birds or something – Phil was distracted by Clint’s smile. He noticed how Clint came to Phil for questions about the practice, questions about paperwork, questions about animals, but he went to Bruce to ask about Bruce, to ask how he was doing, how class was going, how he liked a particular client.

Phil noticed. He went home that night exhausted from all the noticing, really.

Phil decided that he needed a distraction. If he was going to stop focusing on Clint and Bruce, if what Natasha and Nick said was true and he was being ridiculous, then he’d have to find something else to focus on, because it’s all his brain wanted to do right now. He stood on their back deck and stared out into the yard, watching the squirrels chase each other around the one maple tree that stood tall in the back of the yard. They looked like they were having fun.

With a dramatic sigh, he wandered down into the yard and looked again. He looked back at the deck and then back at the yard. It wasn’t a big space, but it was his, and he wondered if there was really enough room for a gazebo. He’d always wanted one. His obsession with reading was only just in front of his obsession with making calm, beautiful places to read. It was why he’d built the deck. It was why he’d done up their bedroom with a reading nook and decorated it carefully so it would be calming. He’d have to make it a small gazebo, but maybe he could do it.

It would certainly be a distraction.

When Bruce came home that night Phil was at the computer, looking up plans and costs and printing materials lists.

“You’re going to give it a try?” Bruce asked, putting his hands on Phil’s shoulders.

“I think so. Average costs are around three grand, which we can do right now, and I’ve found some good plans.” He leaned into Bruce’s touch. He would take what he could get right now.

“What do you need from me?” Bruce said, and he leaned down and pressed a kiss to Phil’s cheek.

Phil chuckled. “Brute strength?” He paused and stood, and Bruce wrapped his arm around Phil’s waist. This was good. This was normal.

“That I can do,” he replied. “Is now a good time to start, though?”

“Why?”

“It’s getting colder,” Bruce answered. “I thought construction was a summer thing.”

Phil shrugged. “I’ll talk to the guys at the hardware store, but from what I understand the cold is better for building than the heat. Better for me, anyway,” he added with a smile.

Bruce looked at the computer again and gave Phil a smile. “Okay. Let me know if you need help.” He headed for the office. “I’ve got some grading to do. These kids and their lab reports are going to be the death of me.”

Phil watched him go, and swallowed the worry he’d been holding onto all day.

“I hear you’re building a gazebo,” Clint said the next day at work.

Phil looked up from the counter, where he was looking at a list he’d made the night before, and Clint was standing there with his hands shoved in his pants pockets. Phil had learned to read Clint’s stress levels, watching carefully as Natasha would steer him to a different task when his hands started to shake, or as Bruce would tell him to go sit outside for a minute when things were slow, and today he looked pretty stressed. His voice was tight as he asked, too, and Phil’s worry over his relationship didn’t keep compassion for Clint away.

“Do you know construction?” Phil asked.

Clint nodded and bit his lip. “I spent a lot of time helping out the guys who built the stages and sets for the circus when I was a teenager. Did a few things in the Army, too. I guess I know my way around a tool belt.”

Phil smiled at him. “I’m just planning right now. Hoping the weather will hold for a couple more weeks before it gets too cold.”

They stood and talked about plans, and Phil led Clint out to the steps to talk about materials for a few minutes. Clint suggested cedar instead of the pressed hardwood Phil had been considering, and Phil watched as Clint relaxed a little over the discussion of pros and cons. A customer approached for their appointment, so Phil and Clint stood and headed back inside. Phil took the customer to the back and Clint headed back to his stock list he’d been working on.

That night they ate quick and early dinner, and Phil headed over to the hardware store to talk to the experts. When he got home a couple hours later, he found Bruce and Clint sitting on the deck, talking over a beer. He put the initial materials he’d bought away and was going to ignore the flash of anger that flared when he saw them on the deck and join them, but something about the way they were sitting, the way Clint looked so much like he was sharing something really important with Bruce, the lean of his shoulders toward Bruce, the way he kept running his hand down his face like he was upset, well.

Phil felt like he’d be interfering. He headed to bedroom instead, and took a shower.

The only thing he could think about was important moments from his relationship with Bruce. Explaining his sexuality and Bruce staying anyway. Holding Bruce as he shook with rage over what had happened to his mother years ago. Telling Bruce he’d joined the military and Bruce grinning and saying he’d be ready to get their own place whenever Phil returned. Bruce keeping his promise, never even dating anyone else while Phil was gone, waiting for him. Bruce holding Phil through nightmares of his own after his time in Iraq. Buying his father out of the veterinary clinic, his dad grinning from ear to ear as he signed the place over to Bruce and Phil. The day they bought this house together, when Bruce leaned his head on Phil’s shoulder and sighed, “You’re stuck with me for good, you know.” 

Phil dried off and settled into his reading nook in their bedroom with his book about Gettysburg, and he read until he started to get sleepy. As he was climbing into bed, Bruce came to the doorway and crossed his arms.

“You didn’t come say hello to Clint,” he said, frowning.

Phil shrugged and pulled the covers up. “It looked like you two were into a serious conversation. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“He thinks you’re mad at him,” Bruce said.

“I’m not.”

“Well, you could have at least said hello before he left.”

“Bruce. You looked busy. I needed a shower, and I wanted to read. That’s it.” It wasn’t it, and it must’ve been written all over Phil’s face, because Bruce sighed and sat down next to him on the bed.

“He noticed and I noticed that our friend and employee was here visiting and you completely ignored him. You didn’t have to ignore him.” Bruce’s voice was gentle, and it made the feelings bubbling in Phil’s chest difficult to cultivate.

“I’m sorry. I’ll apologize tomorrow.”

“Phil,” Bruce said, and Phil knew that tone.

“I’ll get over this,” Phil said quietly. “Just not tonight, okay?”

Bruce frowned, but he nodded. “I guess. We weren’t doing anything wrong,” he added, standing up. “Clint said he was out for a walk and ended up here. That’s it.”

“I’m not accusing you and Clint of having an affair,” Phil said, anger seeping into his voice. It wasn’t as simple as an affair, Phil knew it.

“Feels like you are.”

Phil didn’t answer. He just turned out the bedside lamp and turned away from Bruce.

It wasn’t as simple as an affair.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to lexorzz for beta reading this for me!


	5. Chapter 5

Clint showed up for work and Bruce and Phil were there as usual, but Phil didn’t greet him with a cup of coffee and Bruce had his nose so buried in a file that he didn’t notice Clint’s arrival. Clint bit his lip and just dug into his usual morning routine of scrubbing down the exam rooms before the first client showed up. He finished that task and moved on to checking the food inventory and wiping down the lobby and cleaning the windows because it was Wednesday, and then he sat down heavily in one of the lobby chairs.

Bruce was talking to a client and Clint watched him carefully. His eyes were tired and he had dark circles under them, and his hair looked like maybe he hadn’t showered today. Bruce had some wild, unruly hair sometimes, especially during particularly busy weeks. This week wasn’t busy.

Clint stood and wandered over as the client took their paperwork from Bruce and waved goodbye. Clint propped his elbows up on the black countertop and put his chin in his hands. “Hey,” he said.

Bruce gave him a watered down smile. “Good morning. Sorry I missed when you came in.”

Clint frowned. He’d been working over an hour without a word from anyone. “I haven’t spoken to Phil today,” he said. “Is he okay?”

The smile fell off of Bruce’s face for a second, and then it was back, even more watered down than before. “Yeah, he’s okay.”

Clint knew a brush-off when he saw it. Bruce didn’t want to talk to him about it. They weren’t that kind of friends yet, apparently, so he nodded and wandered back to work on stocking. He worked mechanically shoved cans of dog food onto the shelf in the lobby, trying not to think of Bruce’s bland smile and pinched looks that day. He wasn’t paying much attention to what he was doing, and when there was a sudden crash and he spun around to see Phil stumble into the office counter with a thud, he swore. So did Phil.

“Dammit, Clint!” Phil growled, and he stood straight again and rubbed his hip where he’d banged into the counter. “Don’t leave your boxes in the middle of the floor!”

Phil’s deep voice and the harsh tone send Clint’s heart thudding, and embarrassment flushed through his body. He nodded frantically and pushed the box out of the way. “Sorry, Phil. Really. I wasn’t thinking.”

Phil, who was normally very forgiving, just glared at him and stormed back to the back room again without a word. Clint’s hands shook while he finished unloading the dog food cans.

It might’ve been that, or it might’ve been the way Bruce didn’t speak to him the rest of the day, but when a client hauled off and actually _yelled_ at Phil about a bill just before Clint was finished for the day, Clint couldn’t handle the anger and felt his arms light up with rage. He slammed the clipboard he was using down on the black countertop and hurled himself out from behind the counter and shoved the balding man in a blue suit to the ground with one push.

Phil yelled, “Clint, stop!” but Clint couldn’t stop. He was angry, the walls were closing in, and no one should ever have a reason to yell at Phil. He backhanded the man and saw blood on his lips, and he pulled his arm back to add a punch, but Bruce was on him, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him to the floor. Bruce’s arms around his chest were tight, and it hurt. Pain and the blood on his hand from the man’s mouth turned the whole room grey, made Clint jackknife and curl away from Bruce with a strangled yell. He rolled to his feet and Bruce reached for him, saying something Clint didn’t really hear. His throat constricted and he fought for air, and he ran. This was a room filled with people who were angry at him, there was blood on his hand, and he couldn’t breathe.

He shoved his way out of the office and onto the street, and he ran blindly away. He felt the cold September air scrape his throat as he sucked in heavy breaths while he ran as fast as he could go. He heard Natasha yelling behind him, following him, but he didn’t slow down. He ran faster, ducking in and out of traffic like he was in an action movie, hearing cussing and yelling follow him down the street. When his legs finally threatened to turn to rubber and Natasha’s calls had died minutes before, he finally slowed down and stopped. He sucked in thick breaths and scanned the area for any sign of Natasha. He didn’t see her. He was away.

His adrenaline was thrumming through his body, though, lighting up his nerves and making the colors around him bright and glaring. He ducked down an alleyway just so everything wouldn’t be so fucking bright. He leaned against the dusty brick wall and clenched his arms and dropped his chin to his chest and tried to slow down his heart a little. When he looked up, though, two towering, very wide men were walking toward him with mirthless grins on their faces. Clint pushed himself away from the wall and looked down the alley. Of course, he’d picked a dead-end alley, so he bit his lip and started toward the two men. Maybe they’d let him through.

They didn’t.

The first hit one guy landed struck Clint across the cheekbone, and pain exploded into his eye. “You’d better have some money on you, shorty,” the other guy growled, and he kicked Clint in the knee so that his knee bent backward for a second and fire shot down through his foot.

Clint felt the sound in the alley disappear, felt the world go grey again, felt his body light up with pain and fear and felt his heart race again, too soon since the last time, but threatening to race out of his chest. This time he didn’t run, and when he blinked himself back into awareness as he reached a hand out to steady himself against the wall, he saw both guys knocked out on the concrete a few feet away.

This time he climbed.

There was a fire escape a few feet away, and he ignored the pain in his knee and the fire in his lungs to jump enough and grab it, and he ascended quickly to the roof. He stumbled as he clambered over the ledge, and ended up sprawled on his back, staring at blue sky and white, curly clouds. He lost a little time, but finally pulled himself up and peered over the edge. The two men were starting to stir on the floor of the alley below, so Clint took a deep breath and limped away, across the roof to a small gap between buildings. He thought about jumping it, but his knee was pulsing with pain and his ribs felt like the guys had gotten in a few good hits.

Instead, he found the roof entry and picked the lock quickly and headed downstairs and out the building front door. He limped away and looked around to try and get more distance from the clinic. He knew where he was, though he didn’t usually come this far when he wandered, so he kept walking. He could feel his knee swell, could feel the spot on his cheekbone where he’d been hit, could feel his ribs protest every breath, but he walked. He didn’t notice the people, just kept his eyes on the sidewalk and his arms across his chest.

 He found an alley and a recessed building to lean against, and he sank down to the street and fell asleep. He woke up sore, hungry, and cold. Pretty standard morning before he’d moved in with Natasha. He wasn’t used to it, though, and when he stood up to get his bearings, he couldn’t help groaning as he straightened his still swollen knee. He found a park bench in the sun and lost time as he stared at the trees.

He didn’t eat. He wasn’t hungry and he only had a few dollars in his pocket anyway, so he just sat on the bench watching people and dozing in the sun. Thankfully no one bothered him. As the day grew long, though, and the sun started to set again, he blew out a breath and stood up. He shouldn’t stay here.

He was shivering – he’d left his coat back at the clinic – but luck was on his side. He saw a sign a block down that read, “29th Street Shelter.” He hated shelters, but tonight was different. He needed to assess the damage from the fight and wash up if he could. He looked around, rolled his shoulders, and went inside. With his arms clenched and his eyes down, he answered the questions from the clerk doing the registration for the night. He gave a fake name, but he looked rough and desperate, and they gave him a bed assignment and a clean towel for the showers after a minute.

“Thanks,” he said, and followed another guy down the hall to the shower room. It was a little grimy, but he found an empty stall and pulled his clothes off slowly, careful of the fist-sized bruises starting to color on his abdomen, and careful of his very swollen knee. The water felt soothing, even though it was lukewarm, and he closed his eyes and let it slough down his face, but that was a mistake. The memory of backhanding a customer flared up and Clint swore as he leaned on the wall of the shower. “Hit a goddamned customer and fucking ran,” he muttered. “Goddamned idiot. Fuck!” he growled, and he shut the water off in frustration.

He didn’t deserve a bed. He dressed quickly and stomped down the hall to the exit.

“Hey, pal, you can stay for the night you know,” a young man called to him from the lobby.

He waved his hand and didn’t look at the kid. “Give the bed to someone who needs it more,” he said, and he left. It might not have been the smartest idea, but at least it was consistent.

He limped down the street until he found a doorway that was boarded up and had just enough room for him to curl into the corner, away from the chill of the night air. He didn’t really feel like getting picked up for vagrancy tonight, but he was tired, his nerves were jingling, and his knee was throbbing. He’d chance it. When he settled into his spot and closed his eyes, images of the customer sprawled out on the floor of the vet’s office and Phil’s shocked face flared up.  He wrapped his arms around his good knee and squeezed tight, feeling the Henley shirt press against the skin of his arms.

He hit a customer, and who knew how hurt those guys in the alley actually were. Bruce and Phil would have to fire him, and he couldn’t stay at Natasha’s indefinitely. She didn’t owe him that. He was screwed again. He sighed into the leg of his jeans and felt the hot air of his breath on his leg. It was the inevitable he knew would happen eventually, but now that it was here, it hurt. His chest felt like it did when Barney left him years ago, like his heart was beating against an inflamed wall, everything burned.

He fell into a restless sleep and woke shivering in the purple light of morning.

He stood up slowly, and groaned when his knee wouldn’t take any of his weight at all. He stood for a few minutes, watching some people wander by and stare a little, and then tried again. He was able to limp until it loosened up, and after a couple blocks he felt better. He slipped into a library, washed his face, and found a chair in a corner to rest in for a couple hours. He tried to think through what to do, but all he could do was replay him hitting a customer and the shocked look on Phil’s face over and over again.

He found the kitten huddling in the doorway when he went back that night. He’d bought a couple of hot dogs and a bottle of water from a vendor after he washed up again in the library bathroom and walked around looking at the battered storefronts of the run-down neighborhood most of the afternoon. He figured he could stay in this particular doorway one more night before the cops decided he was being a nuisance.

The kitten seemed to be waiting for him.

She was a tiny grey cat, with faint white stripes texturing her fur, and Clint was starting to think the universe had some joke it must be playing. He was tired, sore, hungry, and low-key freaking out over all the shit that happened yesterday morning, and here was a tiny, mewling fur ball looking at him like he could do something to help. He looked down at the hot dogs in his hand and sighed. The kitten ate like she was starving, and made short work of one of the hot dogs and part of a bun. He poured some water into the lid of his bottle, and she lapped up two capfuls. He couldn’t stop the tears when she curled up in a tiny ball on his lap as he finished the last of the water.

He’d fucked up with Phil and Bruce, fucked up at the clinic, and Nat was probably pissed as hell at his disappearing act. He was embarrassed, and honestly, embarrassment is why he’d avoided most people for the last year and a half. He swallowed thickly and ran his hands through the short fur on the kitten’s back. She looked up at Clint with the prettiest green eyes he’d ever seen, and started purring. He wondered if the customer at the office was going to sue Phil and Bruce. That would suck. Could he sue them, though? Probably. So Clint fucked up his job and his kind employers’ lives, probably.

His hand was shaking and he couldn’t stop the tears. He’d told Nat he’d screw the job up somehow. He told her he couldn’t stay with her like a normal human. He’d told Sam that he wasn’t sure he deserved anything but the existence he had after what he’d done for the Army. A flash of memory of cages, caves, cattle prods, and grime hit him and he gasped, grabbed his knees, and dislodged the tiny grey kitten.

The kitten mewed and then climbed his sleeve to his shoulders and sat down, purring loudly in his ear and occasionally nudging his neck with her nose. He closed his eyes and listened to her purr box until his breathing slowed and the tears finally dwindled. He leaned back and closed his eyes, and didn’t wake up until the light of morning was bright in the sky. The kitten had moved back to his lap, but was certainly content. Clint rubbed her ears and she opened her eyes and sat up, stretched, and crawled back onto his shoulder.

He sat for a while, listening to her rumbling, and watched the people pass by. He thought of Bruce and Phil and Nat and Sam again, and made a decision. He’d go back and face the customer he hit, take care of the lawsuit from Phil and Bruce’s business if it worked right, and apologize to everyone before he left again. He figured he’d probably get thrown in jail for assault, but that was better than this feeling of letting down the first four people to be nice to him in over a year.

He stood, scooped the kitten into his arms, and started walking. His knee was screaming at him two hours later as he came in view of the clinic, but he saw Bruce sitting on the step wrapped up in a brown winter coat and gold scarf, and something in his chest clenched at the sight. He stopped before Bruce could see him, and ducked down an alley. He leaned against the wall and pulled the kitten close to his chest, tried to ground himself in its warmth and soft fur. He closed his eyes. He’d clearly messed something up between Phil and Bruce, he’d hit a customer, beat a couple of guys up in an alley, and now he had a cat he couldn’t take care of. He looked up.

Climbing to the roof with the kitten in his arms wasn’t so bad, but his knee was pulsing in protest when he reached the top, and the exhaustion of the last two days washed over him in a rough wave. He sank to the gravel and stretched his legs out and savored the warmth of the sun beating down on his face after the cold walk and the dark alley, and closed his eyes. The kitten gave a soft mew and curled up on his chest.

It startled a while later, and dug its claws into Clint’s shirt as he sat up, and then it gave a soft hiss when Natasha and Bruce appeared, climbing over the short wall from the fire escape to the rooftop. Clint wasn’t sure what he looked like at the moment, but the way Bruce stilled and sucked in a breath at the sight of him suggested that it was rough. Natasha crossed her arms and glanced at Bruce, and Clint pulled the kitten close and tried to soothe it by rubbing its cheek.

“You have a kitten,” Bruce said, and his soft voice almost lost in the wind of the rooftop.

Clint just nodded.

“You’re hurt,” Natasha said, and stepped to him, telegraphing her moves clearly. She put a hand to his cheek and he flinched at the searing touch. The kitten gave an ineffectual but clearly angry swipe at Natasha’s hand and growled. She glanced down at it and smirked. “You also have a protector.”

Clint looked up at Bruce, and said, “Did you guys get in trouble because of me?” He was surprised at how rough his voice sounded after a couple days of disuse.

Bruce knelt down near Clint and reached a hand out to calm the kitten down. He shook his head. “Phil talked him out of any drastic actions and comped him a couple of visits. It’s all worked out, Clint. You didn’t have to run.”

Clint laughed bitterly and looked down at the kitten. “You guys don’t need an employee who flips out all the time and hits customers, that’s for damned sure.”

“Phil said the guy was being an asshole and you were trying to defend him,” Natasha said, and she ran her finger across his bruised cheek. It hurt like hell.

“I hit a customer,” Clint said.

“Yeah,” Bruce replied. “You probably shouldn’t do that, but it’s been worked out. You need to get cleaned up and get some rest.”

Clint looked down at the kitten, who was still watching Bruce and Natasha with a wary eye, and Natasha said, “Bring the cat back to my place. I’m allowed to have them.”

He buried his face in its fur for a second and then sighed. He stood up carefully, but the rest on the roof made his knee stiffen, and when he took his first step, he stumbled. The kitten jumped from his arms to safety as he tried to catch himself, and Bruce caught it before it could run too far. Natasha grabbed Clint’s elbow and kept him from going down.


	6. Chapter 6

Bruce held the kitten that had found Clint. It was an affectionate tabby cat, and it settled into Bruce’s arms and watched Clint carefully as Natasha caught his elbow to keep him from stumbling. “How about I keep the cat while Natasha takes you over to the urgent care to get that leg checked out?” he asked, and Natasha offered a grateful nod as she steadied Clint, who gritted his teeth against the pain of using his leg.

Once Clint straightened himself up, he looked at both of them and bit his lip. “Natasha’s working. I’ll get myself over there.” His voice sounded like a stone on sandpaper.

“Right, you’ll be fine on your own,” Natasha said with an eye roll. “No. I’m coming with you. It’s okay, right Bruce?”

“It’s fine. We’re not too busy today,” Bruce assured them.

“Word got around you got a crazy guy who hits people on staff?” Clint mumbled. He reached out to pet the kitten.

Clint looked tired. His face was smudged with dirt and the dark circles under his eyes were black as the stripes on the kitten’s back. His hand shook as he petted the cat, and his shoulders had a slump that made Bruce want to reach out and rub the tension away. “Go get checked out, and get some rest,” Bruce said, “We’ll talk about the job in a couple days. I’ll take care of the kitten until you want to pick him up.”

He held the kitten close to his chest as they all climbed off the roof and down the fire escape to the street. Bruce was glad to get down. He’d been startled to learn that this was where Clint spent a lot of his time. Clint hid on rooftops, away from everything.

“I’ll call you when we’re done at the doctor’s, okay?” Natasha said as Clint made it to street level with a grimace.

“Sure,” Bruce replied. “Any time is fine.”

Clint looked forlornly at the kitten in Bruce’s arms and then pursed his lips and turned away, limping down the street toward the urgent care center.

Bruce watched them leave and the tension he’d been carrying for the last few days loosened a bit. He looked down at the kitten, who was purring in his arms. “You found a good person, there, kitty. I just hope you can help us hang on to him.” The kitten gave a little mew at Bruce’s voice, and Bruce couldn’t help smiling down at the fluff ball. “Yeah. You might be the key ingredient, actually. Let’s get you checked out and ready to go to Natasha’s house.”

He’d gone out looking for Clint a few hours each of the three days Clint was gone, and Phil had covered the appointments willingly. Now Phil was sitting on the front steps waiting on Bruce to come back. Bruce took a moment to enjoy the sight of him with his shirt collar casually unbuttoned and his hands wrapped around a coffee cup at two in the afternoon. Phil was still the sight that could settle Bruce the fastest, and he was struck for about the millionth time at how handsome Phil looked when he was in business casual. Sure, they were in a weird place right now in their relationship, but Bruce still liked to drink in the sight of him.

Phil frowned when he saw Bruce. “You have a cat.” He stood up and came out to meet them.

Bruce held the kitten up and grinned. “This little guy found Clint for us.”

Phil smiled. “Yeah? How’d he do that?” He reached out to pet the cat.

“Well, he found Clint, Clint presumably was going to bring the cat here because he has the heart of a teddy bear when it comes to animals, apparently, and we found them both where Clint hangs out sometimes. Who knows if he would have come back this way if he hadn’t had this little guy?”

Phil leaned around and looked past Bruce. “So where are Clint and Natasha?”

Bruce sighed. “Clint’s in rough shape. Messed up his knee or ankle or something and clearly got into a fight at some point, so Natasha is taking him to see a doctor before we see what’s next.”

Phil was quiet for a moment, petted the kitten behind its ears until it squirmed in Bruce’s arms and started purring. “Well, let’s get this little one checked out. We want it ready for a visit from Clint, after all.”

Bruce watched his phone for an update a little too often that afternoon, but he didn’t hear anything at all from Natasha. He had class that night, and it went well; he liked most of his students. There were a few students not much younger than Bruce, and they tended to stay after class to ask questions. Even though class ended at nine, Bruce usually indulged them, and tonight was no different. It was ten before he left the building, and there was a text from Natasha waiting.

_We’re at my place; sprained knee was the big problem, but a few things came up as well. Call me, thnx._

Bruce didn’t wait. He turned his car on to warm it up, and called Natasha.

It was ten thirty when he got home.

“You’re pretty late. Is everything okay?” Phil asked from his spot on the couch. Langston the cat was sprawled on his lap, and he made no move to get up.

Bruce set his briefcase down next to the couch and sat down to pet the cat. “It’s okay. Kids stayed after and then Natasha called. Clint sprained his knee, and the VA’s demanding a couple of appointments before they’ll get his benefits reactivated.”

“Why didn’t he just use the benefits through us?” Phil asked.

“They’re not as good, and they want to do some physical therapy on the knee, so Natasha asked about the VA benefits. Clint’s pissed at her, apparently. Says he doesn’t need PT.” Bruce had heard Clint grumbling in the background as they talked.

Phil sat quietly for a moment and then sighed. “I’m glad he’s safe.”

“Yeah, me too. I wonder what happened to him.” He wondered if Clint had eaten anything the three days he was gone. Did he sleep? He clearly got in a fight with someone – why?  Bruce couldn’t let his own temper loose, ever – a small stab of envy hit him as he thought of Clint standing up for himself.

“He’s hurt and you said he looked like he got in a fight,” Phil replied. “He doesn’t seem like the type of guy who brawls.”

“He was military – he knows a little about how to fight, right?”

“Not necessarily.” Phil paused. “I couldn’t believe it when he hauled off and hit Mr. Cardoman. Temper out of nowhere.”

“It had been a bad morning, though,” Bruce replied. That was an understatement and they both knew it. It had been an awful night before, and he and Phil still hadn’t talked about it. They were both quiet for a moment, and Bruce watched as Phil stood and went to get ready for bed without a word. Bruce followed a bit later and that night he dreamed of forests and wind and sitting on the edge of a dock with Clint, their bare feet lightly splashing the water.

Natasha and Clint startled both of them by showing up at work the next day.

“I can’t do much, but I have to wait until day after tomorrow before my first VA appointment,” Clint said. He was cleaned up and wearing a blue flannel shirt that made his tired eyes stand out. He was in a full-leg knee brace over his jeans, and had crutches tucked under his arms. Bruce could read exhaustion in every line of his body. Natasha didn’t look like she’d slept much either.

“Okay, wait here,” Bruce said, and he left the room before anyone could ask what he was doing. He returned a minute later with the little kitten who found Clint, and he couldn’t help the grin that reflected Clint’s own when he saw the cat. Bruce gestured for the couch, and before Clint could even get settled, the kitten had squirmed out of Bruce’s arms and jumped onto Clint’s shoulders, purring and nuzzling his neck.

“Hey crazy,” Clint said as he pulled the kitten down to his lap. It wouldn’t stay, though, and pressed itself under Clint’s chin and then back up to his shoulders, purring and mewing as it went.

“I think I know what we’ll be doing today,” Natasha said with a smile as she scratched behind the kitten’s ears.

Bruce saw Clint bite his lip and frown. “It’s a good idea, Clint,” he said, assuring.

Clint glared at the floor. “You don’t have to keep the cat because of me, Nat,” he said.

Natasha cocked her head. “Good thing I’m not keeping the cat,” she said. “It’s yours.”

Clint tried to shrug the cat off of his shoulders. It just climbed right back on. “I can’t keep a cat. I don’t have a place of my own and who the hell knows where I’ll be come spring?”

Bruce felt anger flare in his chest, but Natasha beat him to the punch.

“Because we’ll all let you end up back on the street? Jesus, Clint. When will you learn?”

“I can’t keep it,” Clint countered, and he stood up and shoved his crutches under his arms. He ignored the kitten clinging to his shoulders. “I can’t even look after myself.”

It was Phil who took this statement on. “You’ve been looking after yourself for a long time,” he said, reaching over to pick up the kitten. It squirmed for a moment, but Phil was good at cats, and he pressed it to his chest and scratched in just the right spot to get it to relax. “Maybe looking after something else for a bit will be good.”

Bruce nodded. “Besides, you’ve always got us as backup. We’ll make sure it’s okay if you have to leave it with us.”

“Langston likes other cats and Hughes will get over it,” Phil added.

Bruce grinned at him.

Clint glared at all of them now. Bruce had to admit that he had a very penetrating glare. “You’re ganging up on me,” he groused.

“Yes,” all three of them answered together.

Phil added, “We gave him a bath and his shots yesterday. He’s got a cut on his back leg that I want to keep an eye on, but you can give him antibiotics for it. He should be fine.” He handed the fluff ball back to Clint, who sighed.

“Okay,” he agreed. “For now.”

“Let’s get him home and you can babysit him and your bum leg while I go pick up supplies,” Natasha suggested as she took the cat from Clint so he could walk.

“Don’t forget to name him,” Bruce said, and Clint smiled, nodding.

They left Phil and Bruce standing in the lobby, and Bruce thought Clint looked a little less tired as he hobbled away.

After a few moments, Phil said, “Do you want to go to dinner with me tonight? Out?”

Bruce sucked in a sharp breath. “I have a mandatory meeting at the college. I’m sorry.” He could feel the disappointment roll off of Phi in a wave, but Phil just nodded.

“Okay,” he said, and his eyes shuttered. As he walked away, Bruce was left with an all-too familiar feeling of not being able to do anything right with him lately. When Bruce got home hours later, Phil was already in bed.

<><<><><> 

Phil felt mechanical, like his body was made of metal and his heart was made of wires and his brain was simply a processor, cold and efficient. He was keeping the vet business running, dealing with customers and the accounting and the supply orders and the facility, and it was a well-oiled machine. He was a well-oiled machine. He was functioning.

Except for how he wasn’t.

He could feel Bruce slipping through his fingers. He could see him distancing himself from Phil and the life they’d built together. He could see him branching out into a new life, teaching at the college and his relationship with Natasha and Clint. Oh, Natasha and Nick still scoffed at the idea that Bruce was in a relationship with anyone other than Phil, but he could see it. Bruce had been determined to help find Clint, not that this was a bad thing. Of course Phil wanted to find Clint when he was missing, too.

But Bruce had a desperate determination, a longing to find Clint that made Phil’s insecurities flare like wildfire. It wasn’t so much that Bruce was worried about Clint. They all were. It wasn’t even so much that Bruce and Clint were building a friendship. Phil wished he could put all of this aside and build a friendship with Clint, too.

After all, Clint was endearing and kind and funny when he wasn’t curling in on himself and fighting whatever demons the Army and his past had thrust upon him. Phil liked him, too. He liked sitting on the steps in the afternoon sun, finishing lunch together and talking about animals or politics or the neighborhood with Clint. Clint was easy and inviting when he was steady. Phil wished he were steady all the time, even though he understood what the Army could dish out and empathized with at least some of Clint’s pain.

But Bruce was longing for Clint. Phil could see it in his eyes. He could see it in the way Bruce lit up when talking to or about Clint Barton. He could see him lean in and listen closer. He could see him wishing that Clint was around more. He could see all of it, and it didn’t make him angry, so much as scared and sad and . . . mechanical.

He asked Bruce to dinner to break down some of that metallic wall that seemed to be building up like a layer of tinfoil around his heart, and Bruce couldn’t come. He said no. A meeting, he said, and Phil believed him. The problem was that Phil saw this meeting, saw that look on Bruce’s face when Clint was found, saw the last few days when Bruce was longing for Clint to come back, and then Phil saw a future where teaching and Clint took him away from Phil completely.  He couldn’t help it.

So he worked on the gazebo plans. He drew lines, made final lists, went out back and organized the parts he already had, and imagined a pretty little wooden shelter, a place he could sit and read and block everything out, and it lifted his damp mood a bit. It was good. A few nights later, he stood in the back yard, picked up his shovel, and broke ground.

Thirty minutes in, the doorbell rang. Phil wiped sweat from his forehead and grabbed a towel from the kitchen to wipe his dusty hands as he went to the door.

“Hey, Phil.”

It was Clint. He leaned on his crutches and grinned at Phil with that tired grin he wore a lot since he came back. Phil knew he was doing a physical therapy and a psychotherapy appointment every day, and he knew enough about both to know it wore a person out.

“Clint,” he said, stepping back. “Come on in.” The flare of jealousy and worry about Bruce that came every time he looked at Clint at work was sparked by the sight of him in their doorway, even though Bruce wasn’t home.

Clint limped into the room and looked around. “Bruce at class?” His eyes were tired, too.

“Yes,” Phil replied. “I was working on the gazebo. Do you want to come out back?”

“Hell, yeah. Let’s see how it’s going.”

They went to the back deck and Clint leaned his crutches on the railing and parked himself on the steps, just like he liked to do at the office.

“I just broke ground,” Phil said. He sat down next to Clint. “Right now it’s muscle work.”

Clint groaned. “Which I was totally going to help you with until I went and fucked up my knee.”

Phil looked at him in surprise. He hadn’t considered Clint actually helping with the physical part of construction. He’d already given advice on the plans, had thrown Phil a few tips from his own experience in construction, and Phil had actually made one list labeled “Clint’s Advice” that he checked every so often. It had already saved him two headaches. “It’s okay,” he replied. “I wasn’t counting on that. You’ve already helped.”          

Clint eyed him suspiciously. “Yeah?”

Phil nodded. “And you’ve already saved me at least fifty bucks. So that’s good help.”

“I wanted to help out here, though,” Clint answered, and he rubbed his bad knee. “Docs say I can lose the crutches in a week or two, so unless you’re the fastest part-time construction worker in the state, maybe I’ll still be able to lend a hand.”

“Okay. That’d be nice,” Phil said, and they sat in silence for a minute, just looking at the space where the gazebo was going to be. What Clint was thinking about that space, Phil wasn’t sure, but his enthusiasm for Phil’s project was actually comforting. “Do you want a drink?” he found himself asking without thinking.

Clint still stared into the yard, but he nodded. “Sure. That’d be great.”

Phil brought them both a glass of iced tea, and motioned to the chairs. “Come on back up and sit in a chair. Probably better for both of us.”

They sat and sipped their tea, and Phil was reminded of how easy Clint’s company was. Jealousy aside, he did know what Bruce liked about Clint. “How’s the kitten?” Phil asked. Clint had been stopping in at work every couple of days for a few hours, but he did try and work, and he hadn’t said much about the cat.

Now he grinned into his glass before he took a drink. “Crazy. He climbs everything, sits on Natasha’s head, and has a taste for anything that might be out on a kitchen counter. He even steals food and hides it, the weirdo. Nat found a piece of cheese on the bookshelf the other day.”

The affection in Clint’s voice was palpable. “Did you name him yet?” Phil asked.

Clint nodded. “Yep. Dunno if anyone will get it, though.”

“What is it?”

“Dill,” Clint said, and ducked his head a little. “It’s from a book I read once.”

Phil laughed as he realized the source. “To Kill A Mockingbird? Dill Harris?”

Clint’s smile was a mile wide and his eyes sparkled when he watched Phil laugh. “Yeah! He was a nut.” He paused and took a deep breath. “But he had the best imagination and got Jem and Scout to have more fun than they’d ever had before.”

Phil remembered. He also remembered that Dill had neglectful parents, adopted Jem and Scout as found family, and had an unhealthy obsession with Boo Radley, a man built into a murderous ghost in the public imagination. Phil felt his view of Clint Barton shift again. “It’s a fantastic name for your cat,” he said, maybe a little too solemnly.

Clint looked at him sharply, but then smiled again and shrugged. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Seems to fit.”

“How’s life at Natasha’s place?” Phil asked. The sun was starting to set and the yard was getting that ethereal look as it happened. It felt good to be sitting on the deck with Clint watching it turn to night.

“Good,” Clint replied. “She really is the best. She can’t cook worth a damn, but that gives me something to contribute.”

“You cook?” Phil asked. “Where’d you learn that?”

Clint shrugged. “I’ve had to fend for myself since I was a kid, really. It was either learn to cook or live off of mac and cheese my whole life. I read some books at the library when I could. I make a mean stir fry and Nat says I can stay forever whenever I make it.”

They were quiet for a minute, and the vestiges of jealousy slipped from Phil. “You know we all meant it when we said you wouldn’t end up on the streets again, right?”

Clint blew out a breath and dropped his head to his chest. “Yeah. I know you meant it.” He paused. “But what you all want and what happens might not be the same thing. Everyone should stay aware of that.”

Phil nodded. “PTSD isn’t something to take lightly. I know that. We all know that.”

Clint rubbed his finger along the lip of his glass. “PTSD, whatever, yeah. It’s not just that, though.”

Phil waited.

“I have a GED and no work experience other than a circus and the Army. Unless I stay your stock boy for the rest of my life, I’m not exactly going to be able to find much of a job.” He sounded apologetic as he spoke and it broke Phil’s heart a little.

But what he said distracted Phil. “You were in the circus?”

Clint laughed and looked over at Phil. “Yeah. I’ve been a sharpshooter since I was eleven. I had an archery act until I was eighteen.”

“Wow,” Phil said. His mind reeled back to circus troupes he’d seen as a kid, and the conversations he’d had with his mother when he asked how those people lived, how she had used words like ‘wandering’ and ‘difficult’ and ‘unconventional’ to describe it. “That’s…”

“Unusual,” Clint supplied, and nodded. “You could say that. Didn’t exactly prepare me for the world, you know?”

“The Army did a bit of that, I guess,” Phil answered. He had become a stronger person in the military, he had met Nick, he had gained confidence. He wondered what Clint had gained.

“Yeah, it did a great job of preparing me for the real world and then ruining me for surviving it,” Clint said, and Phil could taste the acrid bitterness behind the words.

Phil sighed and nodded. “How long were you in?”

“I was deployed twice. I was in for seven years.”

“That’s where you met Natasha?”

“Yeah. The first time. She was working on her vet tech stuff when I left for the second time.” He paused, and then whispered, “I was a POW for a while. That’s what happened to me.”

Phil swallowed the sympathy that bubbled up. Clint didn’t really have much use for that, probably. Instead, he said, “One of my best friends was a POW when we were in together. I was on the team that went in to get him out. When the air is just right around here, and the light is just right around here, I smell and taste and see it like a video again, and I wasn’t the one in chains.” He spoke carefully, watched Clint carefully. He hoped it didn’t set Clint off, but he wanted Clint to know how he understood.

“You’re talking about Nick,” Clint said quietly.  

Phil just nodded.

They sat for a few minutes before Clint set his glass down on the table next to the chairs and pressed his palms together. “I can’t talk about what happened to me. I’m working on it, but I still can’t.”

His voice was tight and Phil saw tension creeping into the lines of his body as he sat there. “I know, and that’s okay. I’d never ask what happened. I just want you to know that this is part of why I want to help you. I understand. I can’t empathize with you, because it wasn’t me, but I have seen aftereffects before, and I also know that Nick has gotten through, has come out the other side, and I know that with time, so can you.”

Clint shrugged. “Maybe.” He sucked in a deep breath and blew it out hard. “Can I help you build this thing?” he asked quietly, nodding his head at where the gazebo would be.

Phil smiled. “Yeah,” he said, and the realization that he’d been sitting here talking to Clint without even thinking of Bruce or jealousy sizzled through his body, leaving him charged with a good feeling. Maybe he could do this. Maybe he could be friends with Clint no matter what happened with Bruce.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint is back, in therapy, and trying. Sometimes by trying it means seeing what's going on around him, which may not be good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been awhile. Thanks for coming back to this and reading it anyway!

“Clint, hey.”

Clint heard Sam, he did, but his neck muscles just wouldn’t listen and turn his head so he could look up, so he just waved his hand weakly. Sam sat down next to him on the metal bench that sat outside the therapist’s office at the VA hospital.

“You need anything?” Sam asked after a moment.

The first time they met, Clint had thought Sam’s voice was both too velvety and too curious for his own good, but now he knows it’s less curiosity and more compassion that made his voice like an invitation.

“For therapy to be less exhausting?” Clint answered, well aware of how ragged his own voice sounded.

Sam chuckled. “Amen to that. You want a cup of coffee?”

Clint sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly before he finally managed to look up at Sam, who was dressed in khakis and a soft-looking forest green button up. He nodded, never one to pass up coffee. “That sounds great.”

Clint pulled himself to his feet and shoved the crutches under his arms as Sam walked away and then turned to walk backwards so he could talk to Clint.

“You ever been to The Bean Team?”

Clint started to answer, but Sam cut him off.

“Sounds stupid, I know, but they’ve got awesome coffee.”

“With basketball décor?” Clint asked.

“You’d be surprised how they make it work without looking too much like a  sports bar.”

He was right. The coffee shop had an unobtrusive street front, with its name carved into an oak sign over the door. As Sam held the door open for Clint to hobble in, it wasn’t loud or raucous like a sports bar. Instead, it was painted in understated autumn colors and had oak-framed black and white photographs of basketball courts both indoor and outdoor, kids playing streetball in various places around the world, coaches giving speeches to young teams, and basketballs, uniforms, and shoes. There was one large screen TV in the back corner, but it was set to low enough volume that the only way to hear it would be to sit in the area right in front, and it was playing a documentary about streetball at the moment.

It was crowded, but there were still one or two tables, and Sam herded Clint over to one and made him tell Sam his order. A few minutes later, Sam came back with two clear glass cups of coffee and two bagels with a hazelnut spread. “I didn’t order a bagel, Sam,” Clint protested.

“Yeah, but you have to try this. They make the bagels and the spread right here in the shop, and I guarantee it’s the best you’ve ever had. My grandma baked everything under the sun and this rivals her stuff.” He paused and added, “Don’t tell her I said that.”

He wasn’t wrong—it was delicious.

“So is therapy kicking your ass?” Sam asked after a few moments of quiet munching.

Clint also liked Sam because he did _not_ beat around the bush.

“Yeah, but Haley is pretty awesome. Thanks for getting me in with her.” He paused. “The others weren’t like her.” He couldn’t name it, but the feeling she gave him was nothing like the shrinks he tried when he first got shipped home. He couldn’t remember their names or faces, just the feeling of fear and hopelessness that he thought none of them could even hope to work him out of. Dr. Taylor, though, with her pixie punk look and soothing alto voice, chipped away at his walls of fear with just a few words the first day.

“Yeah, she’s new here, but I’ve spent some time with her and she seemed like she’d be a good fit for you. You feel like you’re making progress?” Sam said.

Clint sipped his coffee. Talking about therapy was almost as hard as therapy itself. “Yeah. I’m sleeping a little longer these nights. Dill helps with that, too, though.”

“Dill?”

“A kitten I found.  Nat’s letting him stay. He sleeps on my pillow, and I guess my dumb body knows he’s there even when I’m sleeping because I’m not waking up thrashing anymore.”

“I hated that,” Sam said. “I couldn’t sleep with anyone for two years after I got back.”

Clint grinned. “Pretty long dry spell, huh?”

“Hey. Don’t have to sleep with someone to sleep with someone, you know? I made it work. Are you?”

Clint laughed. “That’s hilarious. Make it work, right. When I moved back in with Nat and started working with Bruce and Phil, which was the most time I’d spent around another person in almost two years. My sex life has not been what you would call active.”

“You want it to be?” Sam said, and then he held up his hands. “Sorry. I’m being nosy. I just mean that as you get to feeling better, you should think about taking back some other parts of your life, too. I know I got so into my own head that therapy and feeling better felt like I was…” he paused, looking for the right words.

“Coming back into the sunlight after being in a dank, moldy tunnel?” Clint offered. He knew the feeling. He figured he was still in the tunnel right now, but he could at least see the light, where before it was just dark as pitch. And sex? “No. I mean, eventually, yeah.” Bruce and Phil slipped into his mind suddenly, like they were stepping onstage from behind a curtain, and he choked a little on his coffee. He felt himself blush, then, and Sam laughed.

“Got someone in mind?” he asked with a wicked grin.

Clint shook his head. “Unattainable and eventually a strategically stupid idea, I guess. I have more important things to worry about right now, though, so it’s cool.”

Sam raised an eyebrow, and Clint swallowed a wave of embarrassment. Of course Sam knew that Clint only had three other people in his life, and was probably putting it together on his own. “It’s complicated,” Clint added, because…yeah. He’d blame his current mental state for making his desires for Bruce and Phil overlap and churn together like waves on the ocean. He swallowed his aggravation about his feelings, and looked at the door longingly. This conversation was getting in too deep.

“Usually is,” Sam replied, sipping his coffee.

Clint stood up and pulled his crutches to his arms. It was time to get out of here and away from people who made him think about things. “Thanks for the coffee, Sam.”

“You okay, man?” Sam said, because Sam was fantastic and Clint knew he was being a jerk for leaving so suddenly.

“Yeah. Just gotta go. I appreciate you checking in on me.”

He was checking in, too. Sam usually arranged to be hanging around when Clint was finished with therapy at least once a week. They did coffee together, although sometimes just a paper cup from VA and a park bench, and Sam talked to Clint about politics or sports or other easy things that had nothing to do with Clint or the animal clinic or his past. Sam was easy.

Today, though, it wasn’t easy. The conversation was too revealing.

“Hey,” Sam called as Clint hobbled away. He turned back, and Sam gave him their customary mock salute – making things normal, getting rid of the awkwardness like he was so good at doing. Clint grinned and saluted him back. Things were okay.

Natasha wasn’t home when Clint shuffled through the front door, but Dill was at his feet, meowing and working hard to trip Clint up.

“Cat, dammit,” Clint muttered, but he headed straight for the kitchen and dug out the bag of cat treats from the cupboard. He left Dill munching on the treats contentedly and he moved into the living room to collapse on the couch. The remote was out of reach and Clint suddenly couldn’t find any energy to reach for it. He stared at the ceiling until Dill finished his snack and climbed onto him. The cat kneaded Clint’s belly for a few minutes, and then curled up close to his chin, purring loudly while Clint rubbed his head. He wanted to sleep, but it refused to come.

Instead, his mind raced back to what Sam had said, that Clint should take back some nice parts of his life. It was a nice idea. But the last time he’d had sex was in the bedroom ten steps away, before he left Natasha. Memories flooded through his mind – Natasha’s pale, soft skin against his, the way she’d looked into his eyes, piercing him as he shook apart inside of her. His gaze turned to sadness and resignation in his memory, and he remembered pulling his fatigues on again, trying to push Nat to the back of his head, hoping that the desert would burn away the shame of losing her.

His memory could never resist the chance to carry him back to the desert, to the sounds of men screaming, of grenades exploding, of desperate shots Clint took to try and save his team. The sand always choked him, and this time was no different – he sat up on the couch quickly, sending Dill scrambling as he tried to suck in clean air and force himself to remember that he was safe in Nat’s apartment.

He gasped for a minute but managed to get himself under control. He swung his legs off the couch and put his elbows on his knees. He counted his breaths and listed the things he saw in front of him to drag his mind off of the horrors of the memory, like Dr. Taylor had taught him to do. Dill clambered back onto the couch and hopped up on Clint’s shoulders, and when a knock came at the door, they both jumped.

Clint and Dill both startled so hard that Clint kicked the coffee table and Dill rattled a lamp on his way to the curtains he was currently hiding behind.

“Clint?”

It was Phil’s voice, which was weird to hear at the apartment, and Clint drew in a sharp breath to answer. His mouth didn’t work, though, because his brain was being a dick today, so he stumbled to his feet, grabbed his crutches, and tried again without success. By the time he got to the door, he almost had it.

He opened it to Phil’s concerned frown, and a fist raised to knock again. Phil put it down and cocked his head. “Are you okay?”

Clint managed a weak ‘yeah,’ but his brain apparently was still an asshole because he just stood there, staring awkwardly at Phil.

“Oh. Good,” Phil replied, looking past Clint to the apartment, where Dill had apparently decided that seeing Phil was a good idea. The cat trotted over and sat at Phil’s feet, mewing. Phil picked him up and promptly got a chin full of fur and purring.

Clint blinked at them, blew out a breath, and finally caught up enough to ask, “You wanna come in?”

Phil smiled and nodded, “Sure. Natasha was in the middle of something and asked me to stop by.”

Clint reminded himself to yell at Nat later for being a worrywart, but for now he offered Phil a seat in the reading chair and sat down heavily on the couch across from him and lay his crutches down at his feet.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Phil asked after a moment. “I’m not sure I believe you.” He was watching Clint with those piercing blue eyes as if Clint was going to bolt.

Clint wanted to tell him he was fine, wanted to send him away and back to Bruce where he belonged, wanted to curl back into a ball with Dill and let these thoughts of a life where he got to have nice things fade away, off into the distance where they belonged. But Phil was one of the easiest people Clint’s ever found to talk to, and lying to Phil felt fundamentally wrong on way too many levels for Clint to get away with it.

“Therapy was tough today and then my attempt at socializing afterward backfired,” he said, and ran his hand over Dill, who had curled back up in his lap as soon as he sat down.

“Socializing after therapy sessions can be precarious,” Phil said with a soft smile. “Do you like tea?”

Clint looked up and grinned. “Yeah. I do.”

Phil nodded. “Natasha might have told me where it is. Sit tight for a minute.”

Clint listened in wonder as Phil puttered in the kitchen for a few minutes and came back with a steaming cup of tea for Clint. “Um, thanks,” he said as he wrapped his hands around the warm cup. Dill clambered up and sniffed the cup, and Phil laughed.

“He’s curious.”

“He’s borderline obnoxious,” Clint answered, but there was too much fondness in his voice for anyone to take him seriously.

“How did you find him?” Phil asked quietly, and Clint looked up to see Phil’s eyes filled with worry and compassion.

Clint wonders if he was under some sort of spell with Bruce and Phil. He’d never been one to open up, was taught that the less people knew about you, the safer you were. But here he was. “He found me,” he heard himself answer. “I got in a fight after I ran from here, and I was feeling pretty rough, so I ended up sleeping in a doorway both nights I was gone.” He looked up to meet Phil’s gaze and Phil’s face was drawn tight, his eyes angry. “I got jumped. I didn’t go looking for a fight,” Clint said defensively.

Phil blinked and shook his head. “I didn’t think you did,” he said. “I’m just frustrated that you ended up sleeping on the street again. We didn’t want – “

Clint sat forward, sending Dill scrambling with a meow. “Who didn’t want?” He demanded, anger coming hot and white out of nowhere. “Who didn’t want me ending up on the street?”

“None of us want that, Clint,” Phil replied, and he looked confused.

“What any of us want has nothing to do with what’s going to happen, and the sooner you all fucking learn it, the better off we’ll all be,” Clint snarled as he put his head in his hands, frustrated.

“You sound like you don’t think you have any control over what happens, or that Bruce and Natasha and Sam and I have no chance to help you have control over what happens,” Phil said, and his voice was gentle and soothing like a soft balm.

Clint looked up at him. “Control isn’t something I’ve had for a while,” he said. “”And in my experience it definitely doesn’t last.”

“You need to stop defining the future by the past,” Phil retorted quickly, and he held Clint in his gaze with absolutely no quarter.

Clint looked at Phil and his breath caught in his throat. He swallowed and told his heart that Phil wasn’t yelling at him, that the bold tone was out of care and not anger, but he had a hard time making himself believe it. He blinked. “Yeah, well,” he said, running his hand through his hair and finally looking away.

Phil blew out a deep breath and leaned forward to pet Dill, who clambered off of Clint’s lap, onto the coffee table and over to Phil. “”Look, I’m just saying you need to entertain the possibility that things might be different this time. Things change. Things definitely change.”

Clint looked up sharply at the defeated tone in Phil’s voice. Phil wasn’t even looking at him anymore, instead staring at the floor with his mouth drawn down, and Clint realized that Phil wasn’t talking about him anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (Oh, and the title is from Paul Simon's brilliant song, "Train in the Distance" - lyric: "Negotiations and love songs are often mistaken for one and the same.")


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